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Nicholas Hoult to Play Another Pale Little Freak in Renfield

Photo: Rachel Murray/Getty Images for Hulu

Oh, what a day, what a lovely day! Nicholas Hoult, the beloved crown prince of playing pale and sniveling little freaks, has been cast as one of literature’s most notorious little freaks of all: the bug-eating Renfield, Dracula’s familiar. Because everything has to be some sort of spinoff origin story of an existing work, Deadline reports that Universal is developing an original story about the character Renfield in a film called Renfield, as part of its wider monster-movie development slate.

Renfield will be directed by The Tomorrow War’s Chris McKay, and … oh, no, not this … “it’s believed to take place during the present day and is not a period piece.” What a waste of a Hoult. Don’t they know how hard he goes in period dramas?

Nicholas Hoult to Play Another Pale Little Freak in Renfield