A faithful and old fashioned retelling of the classic novel, it was Coppola at his most wildly unhinged and experimental, but also at his most populist and entertaining. It's a brilliant, frequently breathtaking film that borders on masterpiece status, and on its 25th anniversary, worthy of appreciation and discussion.
Here are nine things you might not know about the blood-soaked favorite.
Coppola was pondering an adaptation of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," when Ryder nudged him towards this material. Thankfully, Coppola bit.
His company, American Zoetrope, once a hotbed for young creative talent wanting to push the limits of the status quo, was blinking on the edge of bankruptcy. "The Godfather, Part III" had made money, but paled in comparison to the earlier installments. "Dracula" was a chance to make a movie for a big studio on time and on budget, and that's what he did.
Coppola was "particularly concerned to prove that he could be a good citizen in terms of his responsibility report card," said Mark Canton, chairman of Columbia Pictures, at the time. Ways of mitigating the possibility for cost overruns was shooting on soundstages at Sony Studios (where adjacent productions were confused about the literal rivers of blood flowing through the lot) and giving Canton weekly progress reports assuring him that all was well.
Some of them were inspired by artists like Gustav Klimt, with Coppola insisting that the costumes were the "jewels" of the production. And, like jewels, they needed to be properly displayed, draped over handsome young actors. When a new deluxe edition Blu-ray for the film was issued, one of the documentaries was entitled, "The Costumes Are the Sets."
He also insisted on that almost all the visual effects for the film be achieved using antique methods. (Coppola's son, Roman -- who would go on to become an influential director in his own right -- worked on many of the effects.) A big talking point when the film was released was that the effects could have been accomplished by the production of the 1931 Bela Lugosi "Dracula."
Edited together, Coppola felt he could give an aesthetic and tactile glimpse into what he was going for with his throwback-y feature. (Some of this could be seen in various home video releases for the film, beginning with a loaded Criterion Collection laserdisc.)
Further rumors had the movie being reshot just weeks before it was scheduled for release, although the castle that reporters saw rising into the sky on the Sony Studios lot was for an Arnold Schwarzenegger film that ended up never happening (Paul Verhoeven's incredible-sounding "Crusade"). In fact, there was even an insider-y nickname for the film: "Bonfire of the Vampires," named after "Bonfire of the Vanities," Brian De Palma's famously unpopular adaptation of Tom Wolfe's novel.
Instead, "Dracula" ended up being a huge hit, opening at #1 and ending up as the fifteenth most profitable film of that year, grossing more than $82 million in America.
Fans could also get their hands on a fairly challenging (but poorly received) videogame -- released for Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Master System, Genesis, Sega CD, and Game Gear. There was also a pinball game, lifelike replicas of the movie's iconic weaponry, and, of course, the truly unforgettable coffin-shaped collectible VHS release (above).
