Dracula Untold rises from the shadows of critical panning, as Luke Evans’ Universal Monster lands on Netflix’s global charts. The 2014 movie went back long before the count would haunt the Harkers and Van Hellsing, as Evans’ prince of Wallachia and Transylvania makes a deal with an ancient vampire to grant him the powers to face his Ottoman enemies, but at the cost of his humanity. While it managed to perform well enough at the box office, critics were left unimpressed by Evan’s dark origin.

While critics once branded Dracula Untold as an underwhelming retelling of a classic villain’s origins, Netflix’s global movie charts revealed it climbed into the top 10 films on the platform. Within its first week in the charts, Dracula Untold climbed to third place with 10,300,000 hours viewed, only falling behind the recently released Ultraman: Rising and Jessica Alba-led action movie Trigger Warning. Dracula Untold‘s Netflix resurrection even surpassed 2023’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, both of which sat at fifth and eighth place, respectively.

Did Dracula Return To The Big Screen After Dracula Untold?

The Dark Universe Sadly Did Not Proceed Following The Failures Of 2017’s The Mummy.

While Dracula Untold may have been deemed unremarkable, it did slightly mark the first step in one of the most doomed shared universe franchise attempts of the 2010s. While never officially part of the Dark Universe, its canon to the quickly abandoned franchise was always left as an option should The Mummy go on to become a hit. With Dracula absent from the initial roster of leading monsters, producers retroactively incorporated Evans’ count into the franchise.

However, with the Dark Universe meeting a quick demise, Dracula Untold‘s count would never meet his Van Helsing, leaving other storytellers to bring Bram Stoker’s literary monster to screen. Chris McKay’s Renfield would bring a Bella Lugosi-inspired portrayal by Nicolas Cage in the 2023 comedy, while Stoker’s original tale would be revisited as the count’s passage from Europe to England was explored in The Last Voyage of the Demeter. Chloe Zhao is also set to develop a sci-fi reimagining of the story, while Luc Besson will return to its gothic roots in Dracula: A Love Story.

While cinematic trends may come and go, Dracula is an enduring pop culture icon. As such, even with its mixed critical reception, it is perhaps unsurprising that Netflix users may find interest in Dracula Untold. With 2024 set to see Robert Egger’s long-awaited Nosferatu hit theaters, perhaps the forgotten 2014 origin story may leave viewers with something to sink their teeth into as they wait.

Source: Netflix