Alex Proyas ("The Crow," "I, Robot") will direct "Dracula Year Zero," Universal's origins tale about Vlad the Impaler and one of several films about the Romanian royal who inspired Bram Stoker's vampire tale.

Scribes Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless tell Variety that the goal was to show Vlad when he was still vital and to explore the fact that he's considered a hero in Romania for fending off the Turks.

The aim was too play off the horror and the sympathy you have for a character that "sells his soul to the Devil to save his kingdom and family." Michael De Luca produces.

Amongst other historical "Dracula" projects under consideration right now are a script by former "Queer as Folk" star Charlie Hunnam, Brad Caleb Kane's adaptation of "The Historian," and the Sylvian White-directed "Castlevania" adaptation.