Van Helsing Reboot Producer Wants A Totally Different Approach

Last month, Electroshadow reported that Universal Pictures had plans to do a new “Van Helsing” movie, with Tom Cruise in the starring role. Today, Craveonline broke the news that it will be a complete reboot, leaving behind all traces of the awful Hugh Jackman-starring, Stephen Sommers-directed version in the mud (where it belongs). With any luck, it’ll be more like the old Dracula films with the legendary Peter Cushing (“Star Wars” Episode IV”). Cruise will be producing alongside “Star Trek” writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. This was what Kurtzman had to say about the project:

“Well, I don’t want to give away too much, because we are actually at the very beginning of talking about what to do with it. But I do feel like the Van Helsing that Anthony Hopkins plays in [Bram Stoker’s] Dracula is sort of the parody version of it, and the Van Helsing that Hugh Jackman played was obviously in a different place as well. I think that these kinds of movies have evolved a lot since then. You know, The Dark Knight was a major, major corner-turning moment in the way that genre and superhero stories could be told. Really grounded in reality. Really grounded in really cool things. That’s what I’d like to do without sacrificing the fantasy element. We aspired to do that as well on Trek, you know, keep it “real.” That’s such a different franchise than Batman, but that’s really what we wanted to do. And we’d love to do that with Van Helsing.”

I don’t know what Kurtzman was smoking when he said that, but Hopkins’ version of the character was never even remotely a parody. This is just a worrying sign that he just doesn’t get it. Anyway, the duo are also currently planning a new version of “The Mummy” at Universal. More updates as we get em…