A young lawyer named Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves, though Coppola has openly criticized his own reasoning for casting Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker ; according to him, he needed a young, hot star that would connect with the girls) is assigned to a gloomy village in the mists of eastern Europe . He is captured and imprisoned by a strange vampire and his bloodsucker girlfriends . He really is a 15th-century Romanian warrior who lives on through the ages and gone back life . Avenging the death of his beloved wife ; the undead vampire named Dracula (Gary Oldman , among those who auditioned for the part were Andy Garcia , Gabriel Byrne, Armand Assante, Antonio Banderas and Viggo Mortensen) comes to England to seduce a visitor's fiancée (Winona Rider) and inflict havoc in the foreign land . As it is said that Dracula has extraordinary powers , but these supernatural powers have sinister origins . Dracula starts a reign of seduction and horror, draining the life from Mina's closest friend, Lucy (Sadie Frost) . But Dracula has not counted on young Lords (Gary Elwes , Bill Campbell , Keanu Reeves) acquiring the assistance of the Vampire expert Prof. Abraham Van Helsing 8anthony Hopkins) .
Colorful version about the famous personage with an all-star cast , brilliant cinematography by Michael Balhaus , glamorous gowns and spectacular production design by Thomas Sanders , including evocative sights on Victorian London . And special mention to rousing and powerful musical score composed and conducted by Wojciech Kilar . This thrilling as well as sumptuous film contains horrifying scenes , chills , lots of gore and red jelly was used for the blood . Interesting script by writer James V. Hart , he started writing the screenplay in 1977 ; according to him, David Lean was the first choice to direct the movie, but was unavailable as he was working on Nostromo, which was eventually shelved after his death . Gary Oldman brings something unique to the vampire role, somewhere between Max Schreck's hideous Count Orlok , the debonair Lugosi/Lee/Langela Dracula and a wolfman makeup lookalike , Oldman may well exude some sort of animal magnetism to women, but is still a hideous fanged beast on the prowl . High-budgeted film , though to keep the budget manageable, Columbia insisted that the film be shot in Los Angeles and not on location. Costume designer Eiko Ishioka -who won an Oscar for the movie and previously had dressed in ¨Mishima¨ produced by Coppola- had never seen a Dracula movie prior to being hired for this film ; she was initially hired as the art director, but when Francis Ford Coppola saw some of her costume sketches, he immediately asked her to work as the costume designer. The motion picture was exquisitely realized by the genius Ford Coppola . The picture achieved success at box office , as earnings from the film was enough to save Zoetrope (Francis Ford Coppola's studio) from bankruptcy after suffering from financial difficulties and liabilities of $27 million over the past 3 years. Dracula deservedly won Academy Awards for editing , sound effects , costume design and makeup.
This version of Dracula is closely based on Bram Stoker's 1897 classic novel of the same name ; other films retelling the known legend based as originally conceived on this novel are the following : "Bram Stoker's Count Dracula" (1970) by Jesus Franco with Christopher Lee , Hebert Lom , Maria Rohm , Klaus Kinski ; ¨ Dracula¨ (1974) by Dan Curtis with Jack Palance , Simon Ward ,Nigel Davenport , ¨Bram's Stoker Dracula'with David Suchet as Abraham Van Helsing , Marc Warren as Count Dracula and Sophia Myles as Lucy ; and last version ¨Dracula¨2012 by Dario Argento with Rutger Hauer as Abraham Van Helsing , Asia Argento as Lucy , Unax Ugalde as Johnathan Harker and Thomas Kretschmann as Dracula .
