Back in October of 2013, one of CraveOnline’s stalwart reporters (yours truly) was lucky enough to visit the set of the upcoming movie Dracula Untold, starring Luke Evans as the famous count. Available on DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday, February 3rd, the film is about the early days of Vlad Dracula when he first transformed from a well-known Eastern European despot into a literal blood-drinking monster.
Check Out: Dracula Untold Interviews: Luke Evans, Dominic Cooper, Sarah Gadon
To celebrate the release of the film on home video, CraveOnline sat down with Evans once again to discuss how everything turned out, as well as discuss how Dracula Untold might link to future Universal monster reboots, and how there might be a Marvel-type crossover in the cards. Evans also discusses a few of his other upcoming projects, and his propensity for playing loud historical warriors and literal gods.
CraveOnline: I got to talk to you in Ireland during the shooting of Dracula. It’s now had its theatrical run and is coming to home video. Are you pleased with the way everything came out?
Luke Evans: Yeah. I was. I was very happy with it. It has a strong emotional content, and I like the way that it drew you in and made you sort of want the vampire to win! That was part of our aim. It was not to just make it into a gory bloodsucking vampire movie, but also to bring a bit of the human to the character. We’re starting on the baseline with this origin story, and I think it interested a lot of people because they were expecting one thing and they got something completely different, you know? And there was a very strong love story that really is the catalyst for his decision-making, and how he protects his people and his son and his wife. There’s a lot to the story that people don’t necessarily expect to see.
So, yeah, I’m happy. I think it looked fantastic, and I loved the effects. The CGI was very well-done. Yeah. Great.
Can you comment on some of the abandoned story elements that didn’t make it into the movie?
Well, you know about Baba Yaga. That’s a wonderful character, and I think, narratively, I think they just made the decision to cut her, which often happens in films. It’s happened to me before. You get cut or your character gets reduced from being something bigger from when it was filmed. But I’m not sure if any of these scenes will be on the bonus features. There is a hell of a lot of stuff on the bonus features. I almost shot an alternate film doing them all! There’s loads of interactive stuff, and probably quite a few deleted scenes.
They were very brave in the editing just to keep it pace-y. Because often period dramas and period films can sometimes get a little bit labored; there’s a lot of story and a lot of exposition. We wanted to hit the floor of running and keep that pace. And I think we achieved that. But sometimes, as in movies, characters get cut. Which is terrible, but that’s life.
