The Nosferatu remake might be in trouble, so you may want to hold off on perfecting your vampire cosplay for Comic Con. The long-awaited update to the classic 1922 horror film, from director Robert Eggers (The Witch), has been in development hell for some time, and the latest setback has the filmmaker wondering if it will ever happen. That’s bad news for Eggers’ muse, Anya Taylor-Joy, who is on an A-list roll over the past few years and was set to star. In fact, Eggers has decided the production may be “cursed”.

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“Dude, I don’t know,” filmmaker Robert Eggers told IndieWire when asked about the status of the Anya Taylor-Joy project. “It’s fallen apart twice…I’ve been trying so hard. And I just wonder if (F.W.) Murnau’s ghost is telling me, like, you should stop. I don’t know. Maybe Murnau’s telling me I don’t have the right.”

It’s a surprising admission, as Nosferatu seemed to be on the hot track to be his next film after his critically-acclaimed debut feature The Witch in 2015. That film also marked the film debut for Anya Taylor-Joy, and Nosferatu seemed like a wonderful opportunity for the pair to once again terrify audiences. Unfortunately, the film hit roadblocks in production, and Eggers has made two other films in the meantime: 2019’s The Lighthouse (with Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe) and The Northman, a Viking epic starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Alexander Skarsgard, Nicole Kidman, and Claes Bang. That film opens April 22 in theaters, and it was during his press tour for the movie that Eggers voiced his doubts about Nosferatu.

The film has struggled for years to get production going. Nearly a year ago, we reported that Edward Cullen himself, Robert Pattinson, might return to the vampire genre to play the lead. At the time, he was in talks for the movie. Considering the success Pattinson had with Eggers in making The Lighthouse, it made sense that Pattinson might be persuaded to join the film. r-Joy remains attached to the film, no other major actors have been officially named to the cast, there are still no announcements made on who has been cast.

It seemed in recent weeks that cameras might actually start rolling on the film. Then came word that another major actor, Harry Styles, had dropped out of the picture due to scheduling issues. Speculation ran wild about the possibility of Styles teaming up with Anya Taylor-Joy as her love interest before he left the project, but Eggers clarifies that Styles was never going to play the lead. “I’ve been trying to get the word out because the word did carry that Harry Styles was going to be in the movie,” Eggers said. “I just want to be clear that he was going to be Hutter and not Nosferatu himself. “

In the story, inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Hutter is a German real estate agent who sells a castle to the mysterious Count Orlok, who then becomes obsessed with Hutter’s wife Ellen (Anya Taylor-Joy). Hutter must then fight to stop the terrifying Orlok – who is actually the vampire Nosferatu – from claiming Ellen as his own. No announcement has been made on a recasting for Hutter, and Eggers has not revealed who will play Count Orlok/Nosferatu.

While Nosferatu struggles to sink its teeth into production, Anya Taylor-Joy effortlessly glides from one hit to another, since her acclaimed performance in The Witch propelled her to stardom. She starred in Split, its sequel Glass, Emma, the Marvel film The New Mutants, Last Night in Soho, and the Netflix smash The Queen’s Gambit. She has previously voiced her eagerness to work with Robert Eggers, but it remains to be seen if Nosferatu will give her that opportunity.

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