Nosferatu Remake Delayed as Harry Styles Reportedly Leaves Project

Filmmaker Robert Eggers has been attached to a new take on the 1922 vampire film Nosferatu for quite some time, but fans have to stay patient about when that project can move forward, as The New Yorker recently noted that the project has been delayed due to Harry Styles reportedly dropping out of the project. Initial reports of the remake date back to 2015, while The Witch star Anya Taylor-Joy was said to have joined the reboot in 2017, with these updates about the production delays being the first reveal that Styles had been involved in the project in any capacity.

In a profile from the outlet ahead of the release of Eggers’ upcoming The Northman, they explained, “Eggers was supposed to be in Prague. The previous week, he had been scheduled to move there to begin preparing a remake of Nosferatu, F. W. Murnau’s silent vampire film, from 1922. The new version featured Taylor-Joy, who also starred in The Witch, and Harry Styles. But, at the last minute, Styles pulled out, citing scheduling concerns. Jarin Blaschke, Eggers’s cinematographer, had already enrolled his daughter in school in Prague.”

The original 1922 film is inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula, focusing on the ghoulish Count Orlock (Max Schreck), a vampire who preys on the wife of his estate agent. Though no official details about the project, nor about its casting, have been revealed, many fans assumed Taylor-Joy would take on the role of the wife, originally played by Greta Schröder. While it’s surely possible Styles could have been tapped to play the title character, it would have been more likely that he would have played the estate agent, who was originally played by Gustav von Wangenheim.

While Nosferatu was the first film inspired by Dracula, it was far from the last, as the Stoker novel has been adapted and reimagined in a number of ways over the decade. Filmmaker Werner Herzog offered a more direct remake of Nosferatu in 1979.

Surely complicating matters is Taylor-Joy’s expanding schedule, with one of her next projects being the Mad Max spinoff Furiosa, which is sure to eat up a lot of her time. Based on remarks shared in The New Yorker, Eggers’ Nosferatu would have seemingly been a much more intimate production than the big-budget spectacle of Furiosa, with the reimagining sure to be facing some complications and likely delays.

Stay tuned for details on the Nosferatu remake.

Are you disappointed that the project isn’t moving forward yet? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!