James Wan to Helm ‘Castlevania’

James Wan, the director behind ‘Saw,’ ‘Dead Silence,’ and ‘Death Sentence,’ is in final negotiations to bring the long-planned adaptation of ‘Castlevania’ to the big screen. Wan will be working from a screenplay by Ian Jeffers (‘Death Sentence’).

The announcement came from Bloody Disgusting, who also got some words from Wan about the film.

I’m very fresh on this project, so its early stages and I’m still trying to work things out, but the producers love my vision for it.

I’ll be working on the script with a writer to give it a new spin, different to the previous versions. This will have my stamp on it which Konami is very excited about.

The thing I love about what Konami did with Castlevania, was taking the iconic Dracula mythology and Eastern-European setting, and retelling it with a Japanese pop-cultural sensibility. That’s the East-meets-West tone I want to visually expand on for the film. I’m thrilled by the opportunity to make a highly stylized, fantasy, action film that focuses on the gothic storyline and the cool, anime-like characters. For once, the human hero is as sexy and dangerous as the vampire villain, and his weapon of choice was what attracted me to the project in the first place – The Vampire Killer Whip.

In 2005, Crystal Sky acquired the rights to the Konami propery, and Paul W.S. Anderson was on board for some time.  This fell through during the WGA strike last year.

‘Castlevania’ is set for release sometime in 2011.

Source: Bloody Disgusting