American actor Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company, Appian Way, is working on a new, large-scale biopic about Béla Lugosi, the Hungarian actor who became world famous for his role in the 1931 film Dracula. Produced by Universal Pictures, the film will focus not on the legend’s twilight years, but on Lugosi’s younger years, depicting his rise from Hungary to Hollywood.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company, Appian Way Productions, has teamed up with producers Alex Cutler and Darryl Marshak to make a biopic about Béla Lugosi under the auspices of Universal Pictures, Deadline reported.
The screenplay is being written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who became known as the writers of Tim Burton’s film Ed Wood, in which Martin Landau won an Oscar for his portrayal of Lugosi.
Fact
Béla Lugosi was born on October 20, 1882, in Lugos (then part of Austria-Hungary, now Lugoj, Romania) and was captivated by the theater from an early age. After his father’s death, he left school at the age of 12 and took on various odd jobs. He first appeared on stage in 1902, initially performing in Temesvár, then in Debrecen, Szeged, and finally at the National Theater in Budapest.
Young Béla Lugosi. Photo: Fortepan/ Saly Noémi
During the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, he played an active role in the actors’ union, but was later forced into exile due to his open political stance. His wife, Ilona Szmik, followed him only as far as Vienna, from where she returned home because she did not want to leave her elderly parents. Lugosi first fled to Vienna and Berlin, where he appeared in films, but eventually signed on as an engineer on a cargo ship, which took him to the United States. In 1931, he received American citizenship. In the United States, he founded the Hungarian National Theater for Hungarian actors who, like him, had been exiled from their homeland. In 1927, he was asked to play the title role in the Broadway play Dracula: the production was so successful that it ran for more than 500 performances and toured for another two years. As a result, Universal Studios asked Lugosi to play the lead role in the film Dracula (1931). This film brought him success, but it also sealed his fate, as he later only appeared in horror films, including such hits as The White Zombie, considered the first zombie film, and The Ghost of Frankenstein.
The film will not focus on the final years of Lugosi’s life, but rather on his younger years, when he rose rapidly to become one of Hollywood’s biggest stars and gave one of the most iconic performances in cinema as the title character in the 1931 film Dracula.
The story will also explore how his career declined after he turned down the role of Frankenstein’s Monster, which ultimately went to his rival, Boris Karloff.
He was never able to leave the character of Dracula behind, but at the same time, this role cemented him forever in the pantheon of Universal’s legendary monsters, which remain part of pop culture to this day.
Alexander and Karaszewski have written several “anti-biopics”: biographical films that present the lives of famous personalities in a way that differs from the usual templates.
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Via Index; Featured photo: Wikimedia Commons
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