The original idea was conceived in 2007, when two friends Matthew Bland and Joseph Tan, developed the story after sharing their love of horror films. They started talking about Dracula's creation in the small fishing town of Whitby, North Yorkshire. A town that is a thirty mile drive from their hometown of Middlesbrough. They were frustrated at the fact, no Dracula film has ever been filmed in Whitby, but in alternative locations. The pair decided to write a story about the return of Dracula to Whitby.
By 2008, they completed several drafts of the script. Sadly in 2009, Joseph died of complications from heart surgery and Matt decided to put the production on hold.
The script resurfaced in 2019, after Matt mentioned the film to his producer friend Paul Hodgson. Paul asked to see the script and loved it. Matt and Paul worked together on another of Paul's film 'Give Them Wings' in the autumn of 2019. It was on-set they began talking about Solid Venom and with the persuasion from Paul, Matt decided to give the project a new lease of life and revisited the last draft of the script, updating some aspects of the story. Happy with the new draft, he hand the script over to Paul, who had spent several months editing it until a final draft was agreed.
After placing the production on hold for twenty-four years. Matt Bland was convinced to allow multi-award winning writer and producer Paul Hodgson (Give Them Wings & 100 of the Best) to have a read of the script. Paul was that impressed he suggested some re-writes and wanted to make the film his next project. After taking Paul's advice, Matt and his co-writers Stuart Hanrahan, Matt Charnock and Paul Hodgson made some changes to the script, which removed some comic elements of the film plus some scenes that we were deemed a little slow paced for the story. When the final draft was completed, the script was submitted to several film festivals around the world. So far, it has picked up 2 wins and 5 nominations for Best Screenplay.