NOSFERATU Remake: Robert Eggers Looking to Reteam with WITCH Breakout Anya Taylor-Joy

If you manage to deliver a directorial debut as scintillating as The Witch people are bound to keep a close eye on your next move. When at the tail end of 2016 Robert Eggers confirmed rumors that he would follow up his high caliber indie hit with a new version of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu high expectations met a certain degree of skepticism. After all, Nosferatu, in essence an unauthorized "Dracula" adaptation but also a pinnacle of German expressionism from the silent movie era, is still revered as a horror classic.

Is a remake at all necessary? Probably not. But if it is to happen, who better to tackle it than the man who brought The Witch: A New-England Folktale to the screen? Not only did Eggers’ debut breathe uncanny life into a remote past thanks to careful attention to period detail, his richly atmospheric film cleverly contested the misogyny inherent in witchcraft myths, resulting in an empowering fable for modern times. If his Nosferatu can strike the same delicate balance between authenticity and freshness, the remake may well be worth everyone’s time.

The news that Eggers is in negotiations with Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch’s Thomasin), which Variety reported yesterday, is exciting to say the least. Conventional casting would see Taylor-Joy assume the role of either Annie (the Lucy Westenra of this unofficial "Dracula") or Ellen (Mina Murray), but what if Eggers cast her in the lead role? How would that influence the themes of the story? Eggers did tell IndieWire he “can’t […] do Max Schreck again” …