Karyn Kusama (Destroyer) will direct, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Jason Blum's Blumhouse, which helped kickstart the new monster line by making Invisible Man for only $7 million, is in the midst of setting up the vampire thriller and is producing.

Like Invisible Man, which offered a contemporary spin on the classic H.G. Wells novel, a new Dracula would take place in modern times, sources tell THR. Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay, who have collaborated with Kusama on a number of films including Destroyer and The Invitation, are writing the script. The Dracula development comes on the heels of another legacy monster project being set up, an untitled horror thriller to be produced by James Wan.

On the heels of The Invisible Man's No. 1 opening Feb. 28 and $98.3 million haul so far, Universal is taking steps to revive its fabled stable of classic monsters for the big screen. But the new batch of films will be stand-alone, moderately budgeted efforts rather than big swings within an interconnected movie universe.

Now, instead of hearing pitches and reading scripts that tie monsters together, Universal execs are telling filmmakers that storytelling is the star. "It's a 'best idea wins' approach," says one producer, "and they are having the filmmakers find the individual stories."