Miramax and Blumhouse drive stake into Karyn Kusama's Dracula movie, Mina Harker

Weeks before production began, Kusama’s Mina Harker is dead—and not the good, Dracula kind of dead

By Matt Schimkowitz  |  April 19, 2022 | 4:06am
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Miramax and Blumhouse drive stake into Karyn Kusama's Dracula movie, Mina Harker
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In what can only be described as a blow to fans of both the Dark Universe and Jennifer’s Body, Karyn Kusama’s Mina Harker film is dead at Blumhouse and Miramax. Sadly, the movie was weeks away from beginning production before being unceremoniously flatlined. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Miramax left the project, citing, and we’ve never heard this before, “creative differences.” Miramax’s sudden exit effectively torpedoed “what would have been a modern take on the mythos.”

Canonically, Mina Harker is the distraught and, frankly, very worried finacé of Dracula’s lawyer, Jonathan Harker. Blindspotting’s Jasmine Cephas Jones would have starred as Mina in Kusama’s version, which moved the action from Transylvania to modern-day night Los Angeles. Alas, the real tragedy is that we’ll never see Dracula take Harker to a very late brunch at SQIRL.

While the proverbial plug pulling is a blow to fans, Kusama has been on a creative high lately. Fandom towards her Megan Fox as succubus movie, Jennifer’s Body, has only grown in the past few years. More recently, she directed the pilot for Yellowjackets and served as an executive producer on the series.

Mina Harker has appeared in numerous adaptations of Dracula, including Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 version, starring Winona Ryder as Mina Harker. The character’s last screen appearance came in the original Dark Universe launching pad, Dracula: Untold, a movie that was definitely released and that we’re all constantly talking about.

Of course, Mina Harker wasn’t the only Dracula spin-off in the works. Universal has their Nicolas Cage-led Renfield movie coming next year. Unfortunately, as fun as it would be to explain the differences between Blumhouse and Universal’s respective monster-based cinematic universes around the Christmas tree this year, we’ll never get the chance. On the other hand, Blumhouse still has a Wolfman and Invisible Man 2 in the works, so maybe, unlike Dracula, the dream lives.

 
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