According to The Hollywood Reporter, Austrian director Stefan Ruzowitzky (pictured) is the latest in a long line of filmmakers to be attached to Phoenix Pictures’ decade-in-development Dracula feature THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER.

Scripted by Bragi Schut, who also penned Lionsgate’s upcoming SEASON OF THE WITCH, DEMETER reveals the murderous details of what happened aboard the titular ship, which in Bram Stoker’s DRACULA transported the Count from Transylvania to London and wound up arriving with all but one crewmember slaughtered. Ruzowitzky is best-known for the 2007 WWII drama THE COUNTERFEITERS, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, but also found great financial success in Europe with his previous pair of ANATOMIE/ANATOMY movies, horror-thrillers with medical settings. Among the other helmers who have been connected to DEMETER are TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and FRIDAY THE 13TH’s Marcus Nispel, FLIGHTPLAN’s Robert Schwentke and FX creator turned director Patrick Tatopoulos; Phoenix’s current success with the period thriller SHUTTER ISLAND has reportedly encouraged them to give the project another shot.

Meanwhile, Variety reports that a very different historical bloodsucker flick, ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER, is proceeding under producers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov. The film version of the just-published book by PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES’ Seth Grahame-Smith, whose premise is pretty much spelled out by its title, will be scripted by the author. Burton and Bekmambetov, the latter of whom first grabbed international attention with the NIGHT WATCH and DAY WATCH films, previously teamed to back the animated fantasy 9, optioned LINCOLN with their own money and are financing the feature’s development; 9 producer Jim Lemley will also encore on this one. A director has yet to be selected.

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