"Two gravy pies, please."

While that story about Russell Crowe and Liam Neeson punching animals into an Ark for Darren Aronofsky is still just a rumor, Vulture has an insider who claims Crowe is currently onboard to star in a Dracula re-imagining called Harker. No word on how Crowe came to be attached to the script; my guess is barbecue sauce.

Our spies tell us that Warner Bros. is in talks with Russell Crowe about starring in Harker, a reimagining of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that’s being produced by Leonardo DiCaprio. It tells the vampire story from the point of view of Jonathan Harker, who — instead of his traditional role as a lawyer — is now a Scotland Yard detective investigating the Count’s string of grisly murders in England.

The project (co-written by Lee Shipman and Vulture contributing vampire expert Brian McGreevy) began gathering steam at Warner Bros. around this time last year, when director Jaume Collet-Serra (Unknown, Orphan) became attached. [Vulture]

If you’ll remember, Orphan was the secret dwarf hooker movie starring mini-Madonna, so I hope for a similar twist here. Anyway, we’ve already got Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter coming out, so under the circumstances, I’m not particularly surprised to hear that we can also expect Gladiator: Dracula Cop (how much better is my title???). My only hope is that for Joe King’s sake, there’s a scene where Detective Harker walks into the crime scene, dabs his two fingers in a pool of blood, smells the fingers, then narrows his eyes and says solemnly, “…This is period.”

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