{"id":500631,"date":"2025-10-15T05:03:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T05:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/500631\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T05:03:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T05:03:11","slug":"bela-lugosi-biopic-from-leonardo-dicaprio-in-works-at-universal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/500631\/","title":{"rendered":"Bela Lugosi Biopic From Leonardo DiCaprio In Works At Universal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE:<\/strong> Appian Way<\/a> Productions, the production company of Leonardo DiCaprio<\/a> and Jennifer Davisson, has teamed with producers Alex Cutler<\/a> and Darryl Marshak<\/a> to develop a Universal Pictures<\/a> biopic of Bela Lugosi<\/a>, the Hungarian star of stage and screen who originated the iconic role of Dracula both on Broadway and in the classic 1931 Universal horror film, multiple sources tell Deadline.<\/p>\n

\n\tReps for Universal declined comment. While insiders stressed that it\u2019s very early days on this project, the backstory is interesting, as it came into Universal as a pitch around two years ago and quietly has been gestating ever since. The script is by Scott Alexander<\/a> and Larry Karaszewski<\/a>, writers of Tim Burton\u2019s Ed Wood, which won Martin Landau an Oscar and other top honors for his portrayal of Lugosi at the end of his life.<\/p>\n

Unlike that 1994 classic, the new film will focus on a younger Lugosi, capturing his meteoric rise to become one of cinema\u2019s most enduring and recognizable figures. The film chronicles his immigration from Hungary and rise to stardom, both as the star of Dracula on Broadway in the late 1920s and its 1931 Hollywood adaptation, as well as his precipitous fall after declining the role of Frankenstein, which went to his future rival Boris Karloff.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Lugosi never could escape the role of Dracula, it cemented his place in history as the cornerstone of the pantheon of legendary monsters from Universal, which still is celebrated today. With Halloween fast approaching, there can be no better time to revisit the works that made Lugosi a star.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Sam Neill Boards Legendary\u2019s Next Monsterverse Film<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tDavisson, Michael Hampton and DiCaprio will produce the new Lugosi project for Appian Way.<\/p>\n

\n\tA pair of the town\u2019s most celebrated screenwriters, who are widely known for their \u201canti-biopic\u201d narratives, Alexander and Karaszewski have written some of Hollywood\u2019s most indelible award-winning roles for actors, with projects like The People vs. Larry Flynt, Man on the Moon, Big Eyes, Dolemite Is My Name and American Crime Story, for which they earned multiple Emmys and PGA Awards, as well as a WGA Award. Most recently, they penned the script for a biopic about The Grateful Dead, which is set up at Apple<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIndustry veterans Cutler and Marshak are a pair of first cousins who have been working toward a Lugosi film for many years, beginning when they were teens. Marshak, who went on to become a talent agent, worked with DiCaprio early in each of their careers.<\/p>\n

\n\tMost recently, Appian Way has produced Martin Scorsese\u2019s Oscar-nominated Apple pic Killers of the Flower, starring DiCaprio, as well as titles including The Featherweight and Queen of Bones. As an actor, DiCaprio stars in One Battle After Another, the critically acclaimed film from Paul Thomas Anderso that has grossed more than $138 million worldwide since its debut last month. Said to be circling Michael Mann\u2019s Heat 2<\/a>, which has just moved from Warner Bros. to Amazon MGM\u2019s United Artists, he\u2019s also recently entered talks to star opposite Jennifer Lawrence in What Happens at Night<\/a>, a new Scorsese Apple pic based on the novel from Peter Cameron.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlexander and Karaszewski are represented by CAA and Entertainment 360. Appian Way is repped by LBI and Hansen Jacobson Teller. Cutler & Marshak are repped by Michael Sherman at Eisner Law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Appian Way Productions, the production company of Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson, has teamed with producers Alex…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[164299,164300,164301,4080,164302,77,164303,33878,164304,16,15,17981],"class_list":{"0":"post-500631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-alex-cutler","9":"tag-appian-way","10":"tag-bela-lugosi","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-darryl-marshak","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-larry-karaszewski","15":"tag-leonardo-dicaprio","16":"tag-scott-alexander","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-universal-pictures"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115376436243012236","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}