When writing a screenplay, draft after draft can produce a completely different story than the one you had originally intended to write. It may come from a changing character arc, it could result from a location change or more focus could be pulled on to a supporting character. In the case of Sofia Coppola's Somewhere it was a fairly dramatic shift: it originally started out as a vampire movie.
The Lost in Translation director recently sat down with Vulture and revealed that the main character, Johnny Marco (played by Stephen Dorff), was originally a small part in a European-set vampire film. According to the director, following the release of Marie Antoinette she sat down and decided that she wanted to write a film about a vampire. While writing the story, she developed a small role for a character who was a Hollywood star with a daughter. She then became more interested in the Johnny Marco character and the entire focus changed. Coppola also says that she has left a little bit of the vampire influence in the film, having the daughter, played by Elle Fanning, mention the Twilight books.
It's all kind of funny considering that we just reported about Stephen Dorff wanting to turn his Deacon Frost character from Blade into its own franchise. From Coppola's description it seems as though she got pretty far into developing the vampire storyline, so who knows? Maybe she'll revisit it for her next film.
