No haunted castles in 2008, it would appear. (Wait, “Castlevania” is about a haunted castle, right?) The ongoing writer’s strike has claimed two more victims — the videogame-to-movie adaptation “Castlevania” and the William Tell biopic “Ironbow”. “Castlevania” was slated to go into production in April under the direction of Sylvain White, and “Ironbow”, to be directed by Kevin Reynolds, was slated for next spring. Both films have been temporarily halted because of script concerns.

More:

Both films were unplugged because they needed additional script work that wasn’t possible because of the writers strike. They join the list of such previously scratched films as the Johnny Depp starrer “Shantaram” at Warner Bros., the Tom Hanks starrer “Angels & Demons” at Sony and the Oliver Stone-directed Bruce Willis starrer “Pinkville” at United Artists.

The “Castlevania” script was written by Paul W.S. Anderson, so I guess that means all 9 people who were anxiously awaiting this videogame-to-movie adaptation is letting out a sigh of relief at the news. The film was also budgeted at $40 million, which is pretty incredible for a movie based on a game barely anyone has ever heard of.