Luc Besson is an accomplished writer, producer, and director with a long list of successful projects and franchises. After decades in the industry, he recently found a collaborator he considers ‘the ferrari’ of actors. One of those actors is Caleb Landry Jones.

Caleb Landry Jones and Luc Besson worked together on Dogman, and it was on that set that the bond between the two formed. In an exclusive interview with THS, Besson explained that his mind immediately turned to which great projects and characters he could build around Caleb Landry Jones.

And now, their latest collaboration, Dracula, is taking a new look at the Bram Stoker classic starring Jones, Christopher Waltz, and Zoë Bleu.

Besson and Landry Jones considered characters like Napoleon before landing on Dracula. What made Besson so sure he could craft a take on Dracula that brought something new to the familiar mythology? He said he reread the original text and in there discovered something he’d never considered; at its heart, this was a love story.

From there, Besson knew how he wanted to attack the project, and he knew precisely how he’d maximize what he believed Caleb Landry Jones was capable of. There would be, in addition to the traditional elements known about the character, elements related to the eras he’d passed through in his four-hundred-year life span. The deeper he dug, the more layers he’d be able to hand Caleb Landy Jones to play with.

Landry Jones has nothing but good things to say about working with Besson, highlighting all the ‘classes’ he and Zoe Bleu took in preparation for the roles.

The film has enough of a unique approach that even audiences with tons of familiarity with the source and various adaptations will find themselves discovering new aspects of the story.

Dracula is in theaters on February 6, 2026.