Aha, I see - via WarrenEllis.com, that the Transmetropolitan creator is up and running blogging at the official Castlevania: Dracula's Curse website, talking about some of the choices he's making in scripting the direct-to-DVD animated adaption of Konami's classic game franchise.

The animation is being produced by Project 51 (also involved in "...a series of animated shorts based on the hit video game series Ape Escape", according to their 'About' page!), and Ellis typically sets things up with some sass: "The film is, of course, set in Wallachia in 1476. We’ve worked with Koji Igarashi to get the film solidly inside the Castlevania timeline, and he’s approved everything I came up with, including some new embroidering to the timeline."

He explains, grinning: "To make it work as a film, I had to introduce new backstory, and I went through five drafts of the premise and three of the full outline to get the material where IGA wanted it. He remains absolutely passionate about Castlevania. After eight rewrites of pre-production material, I remain absolutely passionate about beating the crap out of IGA in a dark alleyway one day."

Ah yeah, and there's this 'bombshell', which Ellis subsequently gets almost apologetic ("No, you’re not getting it... We want to do three films.") on behalf of: "Sypha Belnades is in the film... Grant DaNasty is not." Fair enough!