Robert Eggers Reflects on the Long Road to Nosferatu After Movie was Canceled Several Times: ‘I Felt It Was Never Going to Happen’
‘Nosferatu’ (2024) is a gothic horror film directed by Robert Eggers. It’s a remake of the 1922 silent movie ‘Nosferatu,’ which was based on the novel ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker. The film stars Bill Skarsgård as the vampire Count Orlok, with Nicholas Hoult and Lily-Rose Depp playing a married couple, the Hutters.
Other actors include Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, and Willem Dafoe. The movie turned out to be a somewhat unconventional holiday hit. Nosferatu premiered on December 2, 2024, in Berlin, Germany. It was released in the U.S. on December 25, 2024, and internationally on January 1, 2025.
At the box office, the film was expected to make about $25 million in its opening weekend, but it performed better than expected. It earned $11.55 million on its first day and $7.6 million on its second day, raising projections to $42 million. The movie ended up making $21.7 million in its opening weekend and $40.8 million over five days, finishing third at the box office.
The movie has been a success so far, but as Eggers revealed the road to that success was long and difficult. Development of ‘Nosferatu’ started in 2015 when Eggers planned to make it his second film, calling it a passion project. However, he later decided to delay its production.
In a recent interview, director Robert Eggers talked about the tough journey of bringing ‘Nosferatu’ to life. He shared that it took nearly ten years to finally get the movie made.
You never know how these things are going to come together but I’d been trying to make this movie for about ten years, and it fell apart a couple of times. The last time it fell apart I felt it was not going to ever happen, and I was OK with that. I thought that maybe I should be making original things only.
Eggers initially thought remaking something so famous like ‘Nosferatu’ was a bad idea. He tried pitching another script, but it was rejected. Eventually, he suggested Nosferatu to Peter Kujawski at Focus Features, and it worked out because it was the right time.
It’s distasteful to do a remake of such a famous thing. It’s over. Then I had another script that I took to market, and nobody wanted to make it. I went to Peter Kujawski at Focus Features and said, ‘How about Nosferatu?’ and he said yes. It just happened to be at the right time. So here we go.
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