Many, many vampire movies have been made over the years, most of which were inspired by Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. But the first feature-length vampire movie of them all was none other than 1922’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, or simply Nosferatu.

The movie was directed by F.W. Murnau and starred Max Schreck in the lead role as Count Orlok, and it was based on Stoker’s Dracula…though not officially. They couldn’t secure the rights to adapt the novel, so they simply made something very similar but different. Hence Count Orlok instead of Count Dracula, and so on. The Stoker estate sued and the court ordered that all copies of Nosferatu be destroyed but, thankfully for us, a few copies made it and it eventually became a legend of the horror genre.

Now a remake of Nosferatu is in the works at Jeff Robinov‘s Studio 8, with Robert Eggers set to write and direct the remake.

The movie is described as being a “visceral adaptation” of Murnau’s 1922 silent film, with Jay Van Hoy and Lars Knudsen producing through their Parts and Labor Films.

Eggers wrote and directed this year’s The Witch, for which he won a directing award at the Sundance Film Festival, a movie that was also through Studio 8 and produced by Van Hoy and Knudsen. He also has another entirely different deal in place with the studio and producers to write and direct a medieval movie titled The Knight.

It was Jon Silk (Terminator Salvation, Gangster Squad, the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s It) who brought the Nosferatu remake to Studio 8, who then spent months securing the rights.

This isn’t the first time a movie has been made inspired by Nosferatu. As if remaking the silent classic wasn’t hard enough, they also have to compete with movies like 2000’s Shadow of the Vampire, which starred Willem Dafoe as Count Orlok, a role for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. The movie also score an Oscar nomination for Best Makeup.

We also recently saw a new Nosferatu starring Doug Jones as Orlok successfully acquire its funding through Kickstarter.