Photo / Syfy
When we think of vampires in cinema, we think of handsome, brooding, and sophisticated men like Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Lestat de Lioncourt and Louis de Pointe du Lac in Interview with the Vampire, the Cullen family in Twilight, Count Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (played by Gary Oldman), and even Count von Count in Sesame Street. Jacob Batalon, who made a name for himself as Ned Leeds in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man, is making the case for a different type of vampire.
Batalon is playing the lead role in Reginald the Vampire, a promising new series that’s slated to come out in October. The actor is also the executive producer.
Watch the trailer below:
In Reginald the Vampire, Batalon plays the titular character, which the network Syfy describes as “a put-upon purveyor of slushy beverages who starts to come his own when he’s bitten on the neck by members of the undead.”
The series is based on the Fat Vampire series of books by Johnny B. Truant. In the book, Reginald “wakes up to discover he’s become the slowest, weakest, most out-of-shape vampire ever born, doomed to “heal” to his corpulent self for all of eternity. As Reginald struggles with the downsides of being a fat vampire — too slow to catch people to feed on, mocked by those he tries to glamour, assaulted by his intended prey and left for undead — he discovers in himself rare powers that few vampires have.”
Syfy adds, “While he doesn’t fit the traditional beauty standards of the other stuck-up vampires, Reginald still has plenty to offer the world. There’s just one little problem: a bloodsucking chieftain wants to drive a wooden stake through his heart.”
The trailer looks refreshing because the series is turning the genre on its head.
Batalon told Variety in an interview, “A lot of the books [are] about the societal stigma of not being a prototypical leading man type and we put that on its head. We sort of normalize the fact that I’m not a typical white guy who’s buff and tall and blonde, and all that stuff. I think that’s a great thing.”
Batalon will co-star with Marguerite Hanna, Mandela Van Peebles, Em Haine, Aren Buchholz, Savannah Basley, and Georgia Waters.
Reginald the Vampire is set to premiere on October 5, 2022.
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