Dracula remains of the most iconic horror villains of all time.  First appearing in the 1897 novel, he’s a character that holds a Guinness World Record for the most amount of adaptations.  So many people have played the role that we even did a list ranking each of them.

So as the dawn of the new millennium came, Miramax and Dimension sought to bring Dracula into the “modern” era with Dracula 2000, a title that includes both the main villain and the year of its release.  So in honor of this movie’s 20th anniversary, we thought it would be fitting to look at 20 fun facts about Dracula 2000!

1. The film was produced by the now disgraced and criminally convicted Harvey Weinstein. Apparently Weinstein hated the original script and only bought it because he liked the titled Dracula 2000.

2. Director Patrick Lussier had primarily worked as an editor for Wes Craven (who also served as executive producer on this movie). Lussier edited Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, the first three Scream movies, Cursed, and Red Eye.

3. Scott Derrickson did an uncredited rewrite, even serving as a script doctor. He would later go on to directed The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister, Deliver Us From Evil, and Doctor Strange.

4. Finding a Dracula was no easy task. Even as the rest of the cast arrived in Toronto for shooting, the role still hadn’t been cast.  Producers spent months looking over audition tapes.

5. For the role of Van Helsing, Christopher Plummer was one of the very first choices and he accepted the role immediately because he’s a huge Dracula fan.

6. Prior to filming, Dracula actor Gerard Butler already had long hair and beard from playing Attila the Hun. He felt that this would be a good look for Dracula and wanted to keep it, however the producers wanted him clean shaven so “Dracula would be sexy”.

7. Lussier’s goal was to reinvent Dracula in a modern sense and make it “fun, not but campy”.

8. Dracula 2000 contains a myriad of references to the original source novel. Some of them include character names like Dr. Seward, the line “I never drink coffee” (referencing “I never drink wine”), and the font used the film’s titles being the same as the first edition of the novel.

9. According to Gerard Butler, the vampire fangs were a bit of a nightmare. He said they would often crack and even scratch other actors’ necks when filming.  All of this caused him a great deal of irritation in his own teeth and gums.

10. Despite taking place during Mardi Gras, the movie was shot in the summer and released in December.

11. On the first day of shooting, Gerard Butler approached director Patrick Lussier and said that he didn’t realize that they’d be shooting so late at night. To which Lussier replied, “Gerry it’s a movie about Dracula.  Did you think we’d be shooting during the day?”

12. Unusual for most movies, Lussier edited the movie himself, and would often be working on it after shooting had wrapped.

13. In one scene at the record store, actress/musician Vitamin C is standing right in front of one of her on CDs up on the shelf.

14. Dracula 2000 is one of the rare adaptations where Dracula’s origin isn’t Vlad the Impaler, but rather he is Judas Iscariot.

15. There was pressured to get the film out by the end of 2000 (given the title), and since shooting didn’t start until summer, Lussier had to minimize the post-production stage by editing during production.

16. The film was generally considered a flop, grossing only $47.1 million on a $54 million budget.

17. Both audiences and critics mostly panned the movie. It currently holds a 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes

18. Despite its reception, Dracula 2000 was nominated for Best Horror Film at the Saturn Awards, but lost to Final Destination.

19. Patrick Lussier went on to direct two direct-to-video- sequels that largely went unnoticed.

20. The film’s score (composed by Marco Beltrami) was re-released in July 2020 as part of a larger collection of film scores called Little Box of Horrors.

Which of these did you already know?  Which ones surprised you?  What’s your favorite Saw movie?  Let us know in the comments!

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