What if I told you that the world’s hands-down most sparkly vampire, Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward Cullen in The Twilight Saga, was actually related to the real Dracula, Vlad the Impaler?

Well, that’s precisely what genealogy experts from Ancestry.com discovered in a recent test of the actor’s family tree. You see, Pattinson is actually related to the British royal family, and is in fact distant cousins to Prince William and Prince Harry. This now connects Transylvania’s Vlad the Impaler (real name Vlad Tepes), as a distant uncle to all of them.

Back in December, we found out that The Twilight Saga studio Summit Entertainment was developing another vampire movie about the original Dracula, Vlad the Impaler (Read: ‘Twilight’ Vamps Just Don’t Cut It; Summit Developing Dracula Movie). That movie is called Vlad, and it’s being produced based on a script by Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam, but we soon discovered that it wouldn’t have any type of vampire in it at all (Read: Check That: Summit Stays Faithful To “˜Twilight;’ Won’t Use Vampires In “˜Vlad’). Though the movie still seems like it could be really good, this was also sad news because a period film about the first vampire sounded pretty awesome.

Worry not, fans of the nocturnal feeders — with their resurrection of the old 1940s monster movies set to materialize with The Wolfman, Universal Pictures isn’t stopping there. Latino Review first got the scoop that the studio has to decided to go ahead and make that Dracula period movie WITH vampires called Dracula: Year Zero, and it looks like Avatar and Terminator Salvation star Sam Worthington will play the main man with a thirst for blood.

Recently it was reported that Summit Entertainment was making a new movie based on the original Dracula called Vlad, and we all rejoiced as we might see the studio bring us some real vampires instead of the ones that we’ve seen in The Twilight Saga. Apparently, this was a tad premature, and we’ve now discovered that the movie will not be about Dracula or vampires at all; it will simply be about the man himself, Vlad the Impaler, in all of his historical glory.

Entertainment Weekly was able to have a chit chat with actor Charlie Hunnam, who wrote the script for Vlad. The Sons of Anarchy and Green Street Hooligans star talked about how much work he put into the concept, how he wants to see it turn out, and what it’s actually about.

The thing that really stands out is how fascinated Hunnam is with the history of Vlad the Impaler. While filming Cold Mountain in 2003, the actor traveled Romania and was swept away in the history and the myths that formed from the man. This is when he decided to work on the script, researching every little vital bit of information he could find. In fact, while shopping the script, his one “non-negotiable” in the deal was that vampirism not be included at all; no, this movie was to be about who the man really was and what he was about…even within savage acts he committed.

The glaring issue that most who are not fans seem to have with The Twilight Saga is that the vampires portrayed within it are too pretty, too clean, and, well…too boring, to be blunt. It would appear as though Summit Entertainment — the studio behind Twilight — doesn’t completely disagree, as they are now officially developing a new movie that will be based on the vampire behind all vampires: Dracula.

The studio will produce along with Brad Pitt‘s Plan B Entertainment and is currently in negotiations with Anthony Mandler to direct the film. Mandler is another of one of the many up-and-coming directors who currently has a lot of music video work under his belt, but no feature films yet. The movie is being described as an period action story called Vlad — titled of course for the original Dracula we know as Vlad the Impaler — that will follow the feared being as a young prince.

Word has it that Summit has been developing the project for a while now unbeknownst to anyone else. It wasn’t until Mandler prepared a reel that was compared to Zack Snyder’s 300 that really impressed them and motivated them to get things moving forward in a more official fashion.