The Nosferatu trailer will reportedly run with screenings of Focus Features’ The Bikeriders.
The trailer for Robert Eggers’s reboot of Nosferatu is coming — but you might have to pay to see it. That’s becuase, unlike virtually every movie trailer in recent memory, the Nosferatu ad won’t be coming to your web browser first; it will reportedly debut in movie theaters, apparently attached to Focus Features’s The Bikeriders, which stars Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises) alongside Jodie Comer (Free Guy) and Austin Butler (Elvis). The movie, based on the 1922 film of the same name, is a retelling of the story of Dracula. The original film, one of the most acclaimed early horror movies, was nearly destroyed because it infringed on Dracula’s copyright, but a few copies were saved, and it was eventually made available to the public again. It was previously remade by Werner Herzog in 1979.
Bloody Disgusting reports that the movie will be exclusive to theaters at first, although it isn’t clear if it will be hours, days, or more before it drops online. The new Nosferatu stars Nicolas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Bill Skarsgård, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe, Emma Corrin, Simon McBurney, and Ralph Ineson.
As with prior versions of the story, Eggers’s long-awaited take will center on Ellen, a woman (played by Depp) who is being stalked by an obsessive vampire.
“It’s a scary film. It’s a horror movie. It’s a Gothic horror movie,” Eggers said back in November. “And I do think that there hasn’t been an old-school Gothic movie that’s actually scary in a while. And I think that the majority of audiences will find this one to be the case.”
He added, “It’s even more Ellen’s story than previous versions … And Lily-Rose is absolutely phenomenal.”
They’re also going for a grounded realism, with Eggers saying in a previous interview that he felt like Skarsgård, who plays the vampire, looks and acts more like a centuries-old Transylvanian nobleman than other iterations of the story.
Per its official synopsis, Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman in 19th century Germany and the ancient Transylvanian vampire who stalks her, bringing untold horror with him.
Nosferatu will be in theaters on December 25.
