White stakes out 'Castlevania'
Rogue to release vampire film in late '08
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Pic will shoot late fall in South Africa and Romania. Rogue, the genre arm of Universal-based Focus Features, will co-finance and distribute in late 2008.
Deal was worth seven-figures for White, who has been in demand following the sleeper hit "Stomp the Yard." While White has deals to develop "Static" at Columbia Pictures and the Frank Miller graphic novel "Ronin" at Warner Bros., "Castlevania" will be the next film he directs.
Scripted by Paul W.S. Anderson ("Alien vs. Predator"), the drama begins as a Transylvanian knight leads his men into a gothic castle to seek refuge from the Turkish army. The knights soon discover the castle is controlled by the original vampire.
Crystal Sky's Steven Paul and Benedict Carver are producing with Anderson and Jeremy Bolt.
White grew up playing the game in the early 1990s, and was attracted to the chance to make a vampire film. The script sets up a generational clash between Vlad the Impaler and the Belmont family, a clan that unleashed the original vampire and battles to defeat him.
"Most of the vampire films have been present or set in the future, from 'Blade' to 'Underworld,' and I was attracted by the chance to make a dark, epic period movie that almost has an anime feel to it," White said.
Anderson wrote the script with the intention to direct, but stepped aside to helm the remake "Death Race." White, who's repped by WMA and Principato Young, will work with Anderson on a rewrite.
