Rhys Meyers’ ‘Dracula’ Coming to NBC Next Year

He brought life to Henry VIII, and now Jonathan Rhys Meyers will give life to the undead. Dracula to be specific.

NBC has released a 10-episode straight-to-series order for Dracula, a new series from producers Tony Krantz and Colin Callender and writer Cole Haddon. The series is a co-production among the U.S. network and the U.K.-based Sky Living. NBC bought the idea last fall on a “script-to-series” deal, meaning that if the network wanted the script it could skip the shooting of a pilot episode and go right into production. It’s a similar deal that drove the network’s Hannibal series which will also air midseason.

This new Dracula is set in the 1890s and has been described as “Dangerous Liaisons meets The Tudors.” According to Deadline, who broke the story:

Dracula (Meyers) arrives in London, posing as an American entrepreneur who maintains that he wants to bring modern science to Victorian society. In reality, he hopes to wreak revenge on the people who ruined his life centuries earlier but falls hopelessly in love with a woman who seems to be a reincarnation of his dead wife. “It is a timeless tale with relevant, surprising twists and turns with the exquisite Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the marquee role,” said Universal TV Executive Vice-President Bela Bajaria.

The decision to go with a Meyers’ starring Dracula is a no-brainer. Current NBC head honcho Bob Greenblatt greenlit The Tudors starring Meyers while he was head of Showtime, and the series went on to be an international success. Of course, a network Dracula can’t indulge in the same type of sex and nudity The Tudors did, but between this, Hannibal and the Munsters in Mockingbird Lane, NBC seems willing to try anything to get them out of fourth place.