Dracula 2000, under its promotional title Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000, builds upon Bram Stoker's original 1897 novel Dracula, with Count Dracula resurrected in contemporary America. The film was a critical and commercial failure, though two direct-to-video sequels, both written and directed by Lussier, were produced.
Plot
Matthew Van Helsing, a descendant of 19th-century Dutch physician Abraham Van Helsing, owns an antique shop built over the site of Carfax Abbey in London in 2000. One night, while Van Helsing is upstairs, his secretary Solina invites her boyfriend Marcus and their companions Trick, Nightshade, Dax, and Eddie into the shop. The thieves infiltrate its underground high-security vault, discovering a sealed silver coffin protected by a deadly defense system. While attempting to open the coffin, Eddie and Dax are impaled by spikes, activating an alarm in Van Helsing's office. Based on the level of security surrounding the coffin, Solina and Marcus decide that it must contain valuable content, and thus they escape with it to New Orleans with Nightshade and Trick. When Van Helsing discovers that the coffin has been stolen, he boards a plane to America, telling his apprentice, Simon Sheppard, to remain in London. Simon, ignoring these instructions, follows his mentor.
Aboard their plane, Nightshade manages to open the coffin, revealing the dormant body of Count Dracula. Dracula awakens, attacks and vampirizes Solina and the thieves, and murders the pilot Charlie, causing the plane to crash in a Louisiana swamp. Surviving the crash, he vampirizes news reporter Valerie Sharpe, who is reporting the crash, kills her cameraman J.T., and travels to New Orleans, where college students Mary Heller and Lucy Westerman are living. Estranged from her family, Mary has recently been experiencing nightmares of a strange, terrifying man known as Dracula.
Van Helsing and Simon arrive in New Orleans and destroy the newly transformed vampires left in Dracula's wake, except Solina and Marcus. Afterwards, Van Helsing reveals to Simon that he is in fact the original Abraham Van Helsing, who defeated Dracula in 1897, hid the corpse, and prolonged his own life by regularly injecting Dracula's blood (filtered via leeches) until one day, he could discover a way to kill Dracula permanently. Simon is intrigued as to why Dracula hates Christian iconography and is particularly vulnerable to silver. Van Helsing also tells Simon about his daughter, Mary, whose mother took her from England after the truth about his identity came to light. Since Mary was conceived after Van Helsing began his injections, she shares blood and a telepathic link with Dracula, who senses her existence and is in New Orleans to find her.
Van Helsing and Simon unsuccessfully attempt to reach Mary before Dracula does, as Dracula seduces and vampirizes Lucy before Simon beheads Marcus. Dracula, Solina, Lucy, and Valerie corner Van Helsing at Mary's residence, and Dracula personally murders him by tossing him into a mirror before driving a stake through his neck under a bed. Upon encountering the scene of her father's death when she returns home, Mary is ambushed by Dracula and the brides, but she escapes into Simon's arms. In the parish library of a nearby church, the duo are attacked by Dracula, who captures her in the church cemetery and abducts her. On a rooftop, Dracula transforms Mary and reveals himself as the ApostleJudas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus to the Romans for a bribe of thirty pieces of silver. After Jesus was crucified, Judas attempted to hang himself in atonement, but the rope snapped, and he was cursed by God to suffer eternity as a vampire. Solina and Lucy appear with Simon, who has killed Valerie earlier with a stake, and Dracula tells Mary to bite him. However, Mary, finally understanding the legendary vampire's vulnerabilities, fakes the bite, and together she and Simon decapitate the two remaining brides. An enraged Dracula attempts to throw Mary off the rooftop, but she wraps some cable from a large crucifix around Dracula's neck, and they both descend from the roof. Dracula hangs as he attempted to do two thousand years before, but the rope does not break. Mary survives the fall, and Dracula tells her "I release you", curing her of her vampirism before he perishes in the first sunlight.
Now fully embracing her heritage as a Van Helsing, Mary, although doubtful whether the sun has truly killed Dracula, returns his ashes to the vault beneath Carfax Abbey and vows to watch over them on her deceased father's behalf should he ever rise again.
While finalizing post-production on Scream 3, Bob Weinstein approached editor Patrick Lussier on a modernized take on Dracula entitled Dracula 2000. When Lussier asked Weinstein what the film was about, Weinstein responded "I don't know." Joel Soisson, having written under Lussier for The Prophecy 3: The Ascent, was brought on board to flesh out the film. The filmmakers quickly drafted a screenplay by January 2000, which envisioned a smaller scale story than Weinstein had hoped for.[4] Soisson's initial pitch, which included a vampire hunting priest, would ultimately be recycled for the sequel, Dracula II: Ascension.[5][6] Inspired by the prior Hammer Horror entries, particularly Dracula A.D. 1972, Lussier attempted to employ similar methods for his film.[7] Lussier and Soisson also sought to differentiate their Dracula from other adaptations. The director took note of the character's scorn for Christian iconography, ultimately linking him to Judas Iscariot.[8]
Wes Craven served as an executive producer on the project. Craven's name was used heavily in marketing, as done on previous films such as Wishmaster and Don't Look Down.[9]Ehren Kruger performed a script polish, while Scott Derrickson and his writing partner Paul Harris Boardman were enlisted for a rewrite just two weeks before production.[10][11][12][13] According to Derrickson, Weinstein thought the script was "terrible" but was moving forward with production regardless; when Derrickson asked why he was making the movie, Weinstein replied "Because it's called Dracula 2000".[14]
Filming began on June 26, 2000, and took place in New Orleans and Toronto and wrapped on September 6.[15][4] A rough cut of the film was assembled in only six days. Additional photography occurred on October 23 and spanned eight days.[4]Nathan Fillion was added during the reshoots, filming his brief scenes on Halloween night.[16] In November, the Writers Guild of America ruled that Soisson would receive sole screenplay credit and share story credit with Lussier.[17] The final cut of the film was expected to be delivered on December 12, 2000, a mere ten days before its theatrical release. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Craven compared Dracula 2000's rushed production to his time working on Scream 2, saying "What's the benefit of making movies so fast? There's no benefit whatsoever. It's terribly difficult, and completely unnecessary."[4]
The film opened at #7 in its first week at the box office with $8,636,567. In its second week, the film had a 56.5% drop-off, but hung onto the #8 spot. The film grossed $33,022,767 domestically and $14,030,858 overseas for a worldwide total of $47,053,625, failing to make back its $54 million budget.[2] On its initial video release, it grossed an additional $32 million in the US and Canada and continues to make money worldwide.[citation needed]Dracula 2000 was the sixth-highest-grossing film for Miramax/Dimension Films in 2000, exceeding the box office takes of such expensive Dimension Films releases like Reindeer Games and Impostor, as well as Miramax's December opener for that year, All the Pretty Horses.[2]
Critical reception
The film received generally negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reports a rating of 17% based on 69 reviews, with an average score of 3.59/10. The site's consensus states: "This retelling tries to offer a different spin on the origin of Dracula. Unfortunately, there's nothing here audiences haven't seen before".[18] On Metacritic, the film has a 26 out of 100 rating, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[19]
Berge Garabedian of JoBlo offered a positive review, calling it "A fun vampire movie", "a novel adaptation of an old time legend", and "[good] for pretty much anyone looking for some enjoyable bloody fun".[20] BeyondHollywood.com wrote: "Dracula 2000 is not the worst vampire movie I've seen, but it's definitely not the best either. There are some very good moments, most of them featuring the frail Van Helsing as he attempts to battle the fast and deadly vampires. Also, I appreciated the background given to Dracula's aversion to silver, crosses, and God, as well as Dracula's 'true' origins. Not bad work, but it could have been much better".[21]
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "C−" score,[22] while James Berardinelli of ReelViews panned the film, writing: "Of all the indignities to have been visited upon Dracula during the past century (including being the "inspiration" for a cereal and a Sesame Streetcharacter, and being lampooned by Mel Brooks), none is more unsettling than what has happened to the world's most famous vampire in Dracula 2000".[23] Jane Crowther of the BBC gave the film 1/5 stars, saying it was "Destined to enter the so-bad-it's-good hall of fame" and "a prime example of that old remake adage; if you can't do it better or different – don't do it at all."[24]
Dracula 2000 was followed by two direct-to-video sequels, Ascension in 2003 and Legacy in 2005. Series director Lussier and Joel Soisson, who co-wrote all three films, created a plot for a fourth film and discussed releasing it theatrically, but the film was not produced.[27]
