Max Schreck’s Nosferatu film is a masterpiece that has stood the test of time. Its planned remake, however, has not yet gotten the chance to have the same success, and now director Robert Eggers doubts it will ultimately ever shoot.
Indeed, while speaking to IndieWire today, Eggers questioned if the film’s original director was speaking to him from beyond the grave and clarified that, had Harry Styles stayed with the project, he would not have been Count Orlok.
“Dude, I don’t know. It’s fallen apart twice. I’ve been trying to get the word out because the word did carry that Harry Styles was going to be in the movie. I just want to be clear that he was going to be Hutter and not Nosferatu himself. I’ve been trying so hard. And I just wonder if [F.W.] Murnau’s ghost is telling me, like, you should stop.”
In the 1922 silent German movie somewhat based on the Dracula story, Hutter encounters Orlok (erroneously referred to as Nosferatu often) and kills him on a business trip. The movie was previously remade in 1979 by director Werner Herzog and Eggers told IndieWire that, though his take is a bit off, his background made him a better choice to do it.
“But at the same time because of German history and German cinema history, it was his right to do that film, and he needed to do that film. I don’t know. Maybe Murnau’s telling me I don’t have the right.”
Eggers’ new film, The Northman, opens April 22.
