Van Helsing TV Series in the Works at CBS

A new Van Helsing TV series has landed at CBS, following a reportedly intense bidding war to acquire it. It is being executive produced by Rob Doherty, who re-imagined Sherlock Holmes for modern times with his hit TV series Elementary, which also aired on CBS (2012-2019). Carl Beverly and Sarah Timberman will be executive producing for Lionsgate TV, which is backing the project. Author Jonathan Lee (Lockerbie) will be writing the series. 

The initial synopsis for this Van Helsing TV series describes ” a contemporary take on the monster hunter Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, who uses his uniquely inquisitive mind working alongside his ex, relentless FBI special agent Mina Harker, to solve New York City’s most harrowing cases”. 

That sounds a lot like Elementary, with its re-imagined Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Watson relationship and mythos, while keeping it bedded in a police/detective TV procedural framework. 

There have been several attempts to turn the Abraham Van Helsing character from Bram Stoker’s Dracula into a compelling franchise solo character. In 2004, Universal tried to turn the character into a horror-action movie hero, with Hugh Jackman (Deadpool & Wolverine) playing Van Helsing; that film had modest success ($300 million on a budget of $170 million) and had a tie-in video game that was largely panned by both fans and critics. In the 2010s, Syfy launched the Van Helsing TV series, which moved the mythos into a dystopian future and followed Abraham’s female descendant, Vanessa, who awakens from a coma (like Walking Dead’s Rick Grimes) to find a world overrun by vampires. Syfy’s Van Helsing ran for five seasons (2016-2021) and earned a passionate cult following, proving that the character was viable to hold down a franchise or series. 

Other than those two big media attempts, Van Helsing has been the subject of more niche content lanes like anime (the Hellsing miniseries of 2001-2002) or is included in other works about vampires or the Dracula mythology. Sir Anthony Hopkins famously played Van Helsing in Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, while Christopher Plummer played him in Dracula (2000). While the character won’t be named “Van Helsing,” horror director Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse, The Witch) will be remaking the classic film Nosferatu, with Willem Dafoe as “Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz,” who seems to be the Van Helsing character in the film. 

The new Van Helsing TV series is in development at Lionsgate TV, to air on CBS. 

Source: Deadline