Monsters mashed: How Universal Studios fumbled its Dark Universe franchise
With characters like Dracula, the Wolf Man, and the Mummy, it seemed Universal had a winning franchise—then everything went sideways
Film Features Wolfman
It was supposed to usher in a new age of gods and monsters, unleashing a new billion-dollar franchise for Universal Studios just as the studio’s Fast And Furious series was heading into its final lap. Bringing together the Universal Monsters—including the likes of Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, and the Mummy—to create a new horror universe should have been an easy win for one of Hollywood’s most storied movie studios. After all, Universal’s monsters had ushered in the Hollywood cinematic universe long before the MCU, the DCU, or even Star Trek and Star Wars. But when Universal tried to blend its famed movie monsters into a reimagined Dark Universe, nothing turned out the way it was expected to. Instead of embarking on a new era, the whole thing fell apart following the release of 2017’s The Mummy, just as the franchise was supposed to be getting off the ground.
The Dark Universe’s woeful legacy is best signified by a photoshopped promo photo from 2017 featuring the announced cast for Universal’s horror cinematic universe—featuring Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe and Javier Bardem—a cast whose films never got made. The promo photo has emerged as both a meme and a warning for studios who try to plan too far ahead without first having a hit. So, what happened? How did such a surefire bet collapse in on itself and leave the Dark Universe as nothing more than a black hole in the age of IP?
To answer that, we first have to go back to 1999, when Universal made its first splashy attempt to resurrect one of their monsters for modern audiences. Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy blended action, adventure, romance, scares, and revolutionary special effects with a winning cast that included Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and Arnold Vosloo. The result worked, giving audiences a contemporary answer to Indiana Jones and providing accessible horror across a range of demographics.
The success of the film led to two sequels, the first of which, The Mummy Returns (2001) made Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson into a movie star and led to a spin-off prequel, The Scorpion King (2002), which spawned four direct-to-TV sequels (minus Johnson). The second sequel, The Mummy: The Tomb Of The Dragon Empire (2008) came too late, and while it managed to become a modest international hit, Iron Man and The Dark Knight were released that same summer, and providing clear evidence that tastes had changed. Universal opted to reboot the series by 2012, instead of pursuing a fourth film which would’ve seen the O’Connells head to South America to face a new Mummy antagonist, heavily favored to be portrayed by Antonio Banderas.
In between the second and third Mummy features, Universal attempted to expand their Universal monster franchise with Van Helsing (2004), which saw Stephen Sommers direct Hugh Jackman as the titular monster hunter taking on Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, Dracula, and Mr. Hyde in the 19th century. The film is a lot more fun than it often gets credit for, but it failed to connect in the way The Mummy films did, cutting its franchise potential off at the legs.
Hindsight and post-Dark Universe online chatter suggest that if Universal had had the good sense to pair Van Helsing with the O’Connells instead of rebooting they might have been able to resurrect both properties, a la what Fast Five (2011) did for the Fast And Furious franchise. But such a team-up was not meant to be. Instead, Universal pursued The Wolfman (2010), directed by Joe Johnston and starring Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Emily Blunt. It’s a handsome picture, but too old-fashioned and methodically paced to connect with modern audiences. And so, as these films tanked while superhero films, reboots, and Fast And Furious entries kept climbing to higher and higher box office numbers, a Dark Universe was broached.
Dracula: Untold (2014) was a precursor to The Mummy, not officially part of the Dark Universe branding, but not entirely outside of it either. The film, which tells the origin of Dracula, with Luke Evans as the vampire warlord Vlad the Impaler, was a taste of the approach that would saddle the Dark Universe. Universal wasn’t interested in highlighting the inherent horror and villainy of these characters, but in turning them into superheroes, complete with big budgets, VFX-enabled powers, and post-credit teases. Untold wasn’t a financial disaster, and did well enough for Universal to continue their ill-advised efforts to turn the Universal Monsters property into an action franchise.
For the brains behind Dark Universe, Universal turned to Alex Kurtzman, who successfully relaunched the Star Trek film franchise for J.J. Abrams, and Chris Morgan, who made the Fast And Furious a billion-dollar franchise. And to star, Universal brought in one of Hollywood’s most marketable names, Tom Cruise, which allowed the studio to set their sights on big, splashy, global talent to play their new cadre of monsters: Crowe as Dr Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, Johnny Depp as The Invisible Man, Bardem as Frankenstein’s monster, and Sofia Boutella as the Mummy. Additionally, The Rock was being pursued for the Wolf Man. But as attractive as building the franchise around Cruise seemed, it was also The Mummy’s undoing.
Cruise was given complete creative oversight and he brought in his long-term collaborating partner Christopher McQuarrie. Typically, a Cruise-McQuarrie collaboration is worth celebrating, but the duo did not have a strong handle on horror, turning The Mummy into a traditional action movie that made Cruise’s Nick Morton the center, and Sophia Boutella’s Ahmanet secondary, to the point where Cruise’s Morton was made the new “Mummy” by the end of the film. The final result of the film is a mess of conflicting ideas and tones, a movie made for no one outside of investors that ended up losing Universal $60 million to $100 million and costing them their Dark Universe.
What Universal failed to understand at the time was that imitation superhero movies were not what people wanted from their monster movies. The original Universal horror pictures from the 1930s and 1940s captivated and terrified audiences, and while they certainly don’t have the same effect on modern viewers, that same spirit was needed and that the Dark Universe failed to capture that. It would take Universal’s partnership with Blumhouse to finally make good on those expectations with Leigh Whannell’s brilliant reimagining of The Invisible Man (2020), which cost $7 million compared to The Mummy’s $195 million. Unconnected stories, by experienced filmmakers with a strong vision, it seems, may be the best path forward for Universal Monsters.
The pandemic hampered some of those plans and neither of Universal’s mid-budget Dracula movies released this year, Renfield and The Last Voyage Of The Demeter, gained any traction at the box office despite both being enjoyable adaptations. Yet neither box office failure had the weight of a cinematic universe riding on it, leaving the brand undamaged, though not without some caution for future Dracula adaptations.
Still, there’s hope. Whannell was reported to be working on a sequel to The Invisible Man back in 2020, and Derek Cianfrance is attached to a new version of Wolfman, starring Ryan Gosling, for Blumhouse. Whether these two projects ever cross over in the future remains to be seen, but if there’s a lesson to be learned from the OG Universal Monsters, it’s that cinematic universes formed organically have a much greater chance at longevity and remaining a bright spot amidst those universes that have gone dark.
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“neither of Universal’s mid-budget Dracula movies released this year, Renfield and The Last Voyage Of The Demeter, gained any traction at the box office despite both being enjoyable adaptations”renfield was one of the worst movies of the year and demeter was ‘fine’, but should have been called something like Dracula Boat. i think it’s entirely possible that the general public doesn’t really give a shit about any of the universal monsters anymore.
Dracula is evergreen (although not necessarily the Universal version). Frankenstein is impossible to do again. People think of the Brendan Frasier movies when they think of The Mummy. I know there are some other ones, but no one remembers them.
they will always try a dracula every few years (like tarzan or king arthur), but when 2 dracula movies come out in one year that even had (on paper) interesting hooks – nicolas cage IS dracula and/or this is a slasher movie on a boat with dracula – and noone cares it’s safe to say that public interest in dracula is at an all time low. will be interesting to see what the response to dave eggers nosferatu is, because ‘prestige’ is probably the only take left that might get people out.
I remember the days of Dracula 2000 and Dracula: Dead and Loving It. Public interest could hardly get worse than that. I think people could smell the stink of Renfield miles away. I only heard of Demeter when you mentioned it, so that might explain why it didn’t do well.
renfield and demeter are basically perfect parallels for 2000 and dead & loving it. maybe we’re due for a rebound (though i don’t remember any dracula success stories between then and now…maybe blade 3?)
Would you consider Hotel Transylvania?
sure, good enough for me.
Wasn’t the recent BBC Dracula series fairly well received?
It kinda whiffed on the ending, but it was. I think we’re just talking movies here though. And I’m hard pressed to think of a particularly good, recent Dracula movie.
What…oh, that BBC.
The third and final episode was a great let-down. First two eps were pretty good though and could be watched on their own, I think.
I think we’re still too wrapped up in the age of the antihero/actively rooting for the antagonist for unsubtly evil monsters to be useful to storytelling.
“Dracula Boat” sounds like a cheap boardwalk dark ride.
Drag it out to Dracula on a Boat. Just be super literal about it.
“I have had it with all these…”Well, you know.
They could go the “Die Hard on a …” route.Dracula on a BoatDracula on a PlaneDracula on a Busetc etc
MCU actually gave it a decent try with their short Werewolf By Night special – it was filmed as an MGM throwback. People didn’t latch onto it though. I think that’s the only way to make the old monsters work, but most audiences don’t have time for the meta-geekery of vintage film styles.
“Dracula Boat”…so irreverent
I was looking forward to the Dark Universe because I like monsters, but there were going to be some significant hurdles, which clearly Universal couldn’t clear:1. Monsters are typically the most compelling parts of their own movies, but area also almost always the antagonists. It would be exceedingly difficult to pull off a movie where you want to cheer for a bunch of villains. It is not impossible, as The Suicide Squad and Loki among others have demonstrated, but really tough to thread that needle and Universal did not.2. The Mummy worked because Rick and Evie were charismatic leads with good chemistry in a movie that had fun and adventure. It was not really a horror movie, though it did a solid job of trying to have some scary moments.3. Van Helsing was an over-stuffed mess. There was just way too much trying to go on with a plot that made little sense. Everyone seemed to be having fun and a better-edited script might have helped. Also I like Hugh Jackman, but he played Van Helsing way too seriously for that movie.4. As much as I love the classic Universal Monsters, they really are relics of the past. I doubt many people find the originals scary any more, though in the 1930s they must have been shocking. Since that time, those characters have been reinterpreted and done to death. As with the team of antagonists, it can be done (I heard Invisible Man was really good), but it really is difficult to pull off a fresh interpretation, especially one that fits with a larger cinematic universe.5. Horror on the whole is not really a big budget enterprise. Studios tend to love them because they are generally speaking cheap, reliable, do well with word of mouth over extensive advertising, and generate great returns if they hit.
I agree that most people don’t find the Universal Monsters scary anymore, which is why my idea was always that they should make them into a series of gothic dramas. Make the monsters these tragic figures that we might empathize with. Also, some romance wouldn’t hurt. Forego the scares and go all in on the classic gothic vibes.Then again, I liked The Wolfman remake with Del Toro and Hopkins and that movie was considered a failure, so what do I know.
I think #5 is the key point, and it branches out into all the sub-issues that result in problems 1-4. Horror isn’t a mainstream thing, but they are trying to force it by pouring all this money into making these slick and flashy, and in the wrong genres, with the wrong movie stars, when that’s the last thing these need to be.
I thought The Invisible Man was good-not-great, but it was a step in the right direction because it understands what makes The Invisible Man work. Classics are classics because they endure, and I believe Universal has forgotten it’s not really about the monster, but the simplicity of tapping into the fears these monsters represent. But one thing I believe, considering we have now have a “Conjuring” universe with Annabelles and Nuns, is that it isn’t impossible to do something similar with Universal’s icons. A shared universe doesn’t HAVE to mean team ups and crossovers. The ghouls in that series more or less stay in their lanes. But there is an understanding that it’s all the same world. It maintains continuity through Easter eggs and references.
Van Helsing or someone similar should be the connective tissue between the movies. The Swamp Thing and The Mummy aren’t going to find much common cause for a team-up. Brendan Fraser and Rachael Weiss could have pulled that off back in the day.
I’ll only say regarding point #1, the template would be like the Godzilla movies. It’s always interchangeable humans v monsters, or monsters v monsters, but the monsters are the draw.But yes, that’s the least of the Dark Universe’s problems.
Modern media and how it treats its consumers:
And might I add . . .
I love the random nunchuks hanging out his back pocket
I didn’t catch that until probably the third viewing. Vintage Simpsons, putting the joke out there without beating you over the head with it (with nunchucks).
The Invisible Man ended up being a really good little flick that doesn’t need to be cinematic universe.
I’d love to see remakes of the classics in the same vein as that one, but no, not in a shared universe. Invisible Man worked really well in the modern day because it’s about science gone wrong. I don’t know how well some other monsters would translate to the present day. Jekyll & Hyde might – how about a story about a doctor seeking a cure for mental health issues like bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia who decides to test his formula on himself, and instead of curing his issues, it amplifies them. Chaos ensues.We’ve gotten so swept away in the sexuality of vampirism that it’s easily forgotten how Dracula was also as much about xenophobia and the fear of “the old world” preventing the progress of modernity. I also don’t think the right tactic is to connect fictional Dracula to real Dracula. It’s always awkward. Just let him be the vampire, my dudes. If you want to make a biopic of Vlad Țepeș, do that. He’s plenty action packed (and terrifying, depending on which accounts you believe) on his own.There’s also something so inescapably gothic (in the literary sense) about Dracula and Frankenstein that it feels difficult translating it to modern day. Not saying it’s not possible, but they’d have to avoid the rock star, action tone that has been so popular in classic horror reimaginings this century.
My idea for Jekyll and Hyde was to reverse the idea of which persona is the bad guy. Basically, Hyde isn’t evil or aggressive; he’s actually a childlike innocent, as he’s essentially a completely new individual with no experience of the world. But something about the transformation process makes him seem threatening. Perhaps he’s hideous, or perhaps he has a guttural voice, or maybe it’s just an “aura” of menace that he presents. People hate and distrust him on sight. Jekyll, realising this, and having a true dark side of his own, goes on a killing spree against people who have wronged him, which he’ll blame on Hyde if he ever gets caught. He just has to make a few public Hyde appearances to put the idea of a monstrous alter ego out there.
Something important about the original Jekyll and Hyde story people forget is that they were never separate personalities. The transformation is completely physical. Jekyll uses this to live out his wildest urges as Hyde without consequence. The twist I think would still work because most people think of Jekyll and Hyde as two distinct people sharing a body. That was what was always scariest to me, its all Jekyll. Also I liked that its presented as a mystery with his lawyer being the main character.
How about a Dracula movie set right after the Cold War where the count returns to Romania to reclaim the castle that was seized from him (er, from his grandfather, who happened to look exactly like him) when the communists took over? You could show all these other upper-class people coming out of the woodwork to reclaim their property, along with a class people who use their connections to get rich in the new society to make the point that, no matter what happens, society will always have its vampires preying on the common people. With a little sex.
It could also tackle antisemitism. Vampire myths didn’t originate from antisemitism but there’s often overlap, especially with Dracula specifically as Stoker was a massive antisemite. Combine it with how Jews…somehow…were impervious to the plague (due to handwashing and bathing rituals) and you have a great story that…no one will want to see.
That’s what the sex is for.
I feel there are options to help modernize the works without making them superhero’s or going too far into sci-fi. Dracula could lean into a story similar to FXs the strain. Mummy should do the South American story and could be a soft sequel (again set in modern times) aren’t we using laser mapping to find lost cities in South American jungles? Maybe the Gill-Man is protecting the mummy tomb. Put some old man make up on Brendan Fraser and let him steal some scenes. Wolfman… American werewolf in London copy? this one can be the funny one of the group?Frankenstein Monster could lean into a mix of body parts, cyborg, A.I. type modernization… (dead solider program? would it make it easier for bride to come into the picture if they were a veteran married couple?) invisible man/Jekyll and Hyde could be the direct spinoffs if this stuff is happening in the same lab/corporation/government whatever. Van Helsing could be brought in for the mummy looking for rumors of Dracula return or maybe fired employee/whistle blower of Frankenstein and is prepping to stop them once they lose control?At some point the movies can be a kong/godzilla type deal where monsters fight against each other or find a bigger bad to stop and save the world. This would also provide universal an opportunity to bring New Monster IP to the line up. Good and Bad. Witches/demons/zombies/globin/trolls/oh what if Quetzalcoatl is protecting the mummy? is the blob universal studios?
“Put some old man make up on Brendan Fraser and let him steal some scenes.’
Or just no makeup.
Questzalcoatl could definitely be guarding one of those vampire-containing lost cities in South America. I’m also surprised The Passage trilogy of novels hasn’t been adapted – its basis is that vampirism originated in SA as well but had been contained in remote areas before being weaponized by the U.S. Army (with disastrous results).
Fox tried to adapt The Passage into a network TV show. It lasted one 10-episode season in 2019.
I did not know that!Definitely a story that lends itself to a movie rather than a series.
I think it kind of flew under the radar, as I remember those books being pretty popular. But it was Fox, so who can really be surprised? Their whole M.O. is failing sci-fi/fantasy concepts on TV.
The third (final) book was a bit of a letdown as a conclusion. The first two were both pretty gripping reads.
they should focus on good movies, instead of universes.
This. Marvel didn’t start out with a projected mega-franchise. They made some good movies and figured out what those had in common (and what worked) as they went along.
And now, they’re trying to maintain a cinematic universe with increasingly bad content.
They’ve fallen into the classic comic book trap of pushing the crossover too hard to the detriment of the individual books/movies.
I’ve been as hard on Marvel as anyone, but this isn’t entirely fair. To their credit, there haven’t really been any major crossovers in Phase 4. Unless we count the odd cameo here or there, the closest in the movies comes from Spider-Man’s multiverse event, which is why it felt so special. And that’s still a Sony movie to me, unconnected to MCU’s future plans, so their first real narrative crossover is actually going to be The Marvels. (Which is Phase 5 I think? This might be the problem, here…All the homework)
Yeah, we’re in Phase 5, starting with Ant-Man and including Guardians.
Phase 4 did have Multiverse of Madness, probably the most important of the phase as far as long-term continuity. It connects WandaVision, What If, and Loki (where the Multiverse is established), and No Way Home.
“This. Marvel didn’t start out with a projected mega-franchise.”
This is just blatantly false. The post credits to Iron Man immediately teases an Avengers movie and Marvel shoehorned a hastily filmed RDJ cameo into the post credits of The Incredible Hulk. They were projecting a mega franchise from the start, they also made good movies.
Nah that was them just making thing up as they went along with vague after-the-fact ambitions. There was no plan for Thanos or infinity stones. Internally, Iron Man was expected to bomb and TIH was such a dramafest to make with Norton that they were far from “mega franchise” champagne wishes and caviar dreams at that point.
The IM end-credits scene was also hastily filmed:https://collider.com/iron-man-post-credit-scene-brian-michael-bendis-comments/And it’s worth adding that it was just dumb luck that the comics had already “cast” Jackson as Fury.
Basically none of these studios want to take a chance on making an Iron Man. It’s crazy to think about now but that movies was a huge risk. Marvel Studios took out huge loans to make it. The character was an unknown to most people. The star was recovering addict who was uninsurable. Marvel didn’t sell a shared universe in any of the media before it came out. They maybe mentioned the Universal Hulk movie coming out later in the year and teased if Iron Man did well maybe some other lesser known characters may come to the big screen but that was it. Heck most of the entertainment media was banking on Incredible Hulk being a big deal and Iron Man flopping.
“This. Marvel didn’t start out with a projected mega-franchise.”
Right. That’s why Nick Fury DOESN’T show up at the end of Iron Man to recruit Tony Stark to the Avengers Initiative, right? And that’s why Tony Stark DOESN’T show up at the end of Incredible Hulk?Because they DIDN’T start planning the mega-franchise with the first movie, right?
Universal was so confident in this one that they actually made that cast announcement before they’d even talked to everyone on it, figuring that of course they’d want to get on board a new big franchise after the MCU showed how big they could be.
“Cruise was given complete creative oversight and he brought in his long-term collaborating partner Christopher McQuarrie…”Well, there’s yer problem. These two doofuses don’t know how to make anything except for big dumb action setpieces. Expecting them to make a 1999 Brenden Fraser-Mummy movie was stupid from the get go, because OF COURSE Cruise made it about himself more than Sofia Boutella. You can do action setpieces for a Mummy movie, sure. Maybe also make it scary? Horror/Action or Horror/Comedy should have been the clear direction to go in for some of these movies, but no, instead we get Tom Cruise Running At Full Speed In a Designer Suit, and oh also he’s the mummy now.
“These two doofuses don’t know how to make anything except for big dumb action setpieces. Expecting them to make a 1999 Brenden Fraser-Mummy movie was stupid from the get go”
Good point. They can only make big, dumb action movies, they could never make something like the 1999 Mummy because that was too much of a big, dumb action movie derp derp derp.
I can’t watch Cruise run in a movie anymore without laughing my ass off. I’ve never seen someone exert so much energy with so little result.
I can’t abide by a ton of Family Guy jokes, since I’m not 14 anymore, but the one about the reason why Tom Cruise runs full speed in all of his movies is because he’s trying to outrun his gay thoughts is kinda good.
The thing I remember most about Van Helsing is that it was exhausting. It’s one of the most drawn out, straight-up relentless movies I’d ever seen. At a certain point in the climax, I just got numb and started wondering when the damn thing would end already. And the script falls apart if you think about it for more than a minute.
Plus, by the end of the film, the plotlines with Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman are all resolved. So what would a sequel accomplish? There were no monsters left.
This is why I think the Dark Universe eventually petered out; they keep trying to turn them into brain-dead action films instead of horror films. The Mummy worked well enough for a three film cycle, but a cinematic universe? How can you do that when you have no vision besides “Make money.”
BTW apparently Cruise took over because this was Alex Kurtzmann’s first (and so far only) film as a director, and everyone quickly figured out he was in over his head. So Cruise took over just to get the thing done. He’s been making films like that for most of his life, so he knew the ins and outs.
Van Helsing has always had my vote for the worst mainstream film every made.
Batman and Robin says, “hold my beer.”
I remember the action being absolutely impossible to follow. My best example is there is a fight on a coach at one point and half way through the fight it’s on fire. No reason is ever given why. It’s just on fire. I can assume that at some point a scene where a lantern or candle fell was shot but it must have never made finally cut. So we just get a spontaneous combustion coach
I remember a friend told me about some of the stuff that happens in Van Helsing and it was so ridiculous I accused him of making it up. So then I watched it and all of that stuff really happens.The guy who played Dracula chewed the absolute fuck out of the scenery too. It’s like told him before hand this was gonna be his only big part in a big movie, so he made sure people remembered him if nothign else.
Conjuring Universe for the win. Wikipedia says $2.1 billion made off a combined budget of $208 million (I’m not sure if The Nun II is included in these figures). There’s your horror universe.
And honestly that also shows how to do it.Start with a good movie. Then do a sequel and see if the broad world building has legs. Third, do a spinoff based in the same world but with a different set of characters. Repeat as necessary and experiment to see which ones audiences like. Finally, do a movie that ties the spinoff(s) and the original movies back together. Bam, there’s your shared universe.
Interestingly, that’s the map for The Mummy -> The Mummy Returns -> The Scorpion King. Kind of sputtered after that though.
Scorpion King’s reach exceeded its technical grasp. The Rock just looked fucked up.
That bit where the guy has to run into frame before shouting “Noooooo!” is amazing.
“And honestly that also shows how to do it.Start with a good movie. Then do a sequel and see if the broad world building has legs. Third, do a spinoff based in the same world but with a different set of characters.”
That’s not how they did it, though. The Conjuring came out, then Annabelle, THEN The Conjuring 2.
Yep.
I like to think of myself as a movie guy but this is the first time I’ve even heard of Dracula: Untold, nine years after it came out.
I know I watched it, but could barely tell you anything about it.
The only thing anyone remembers is Dracula attacking people with a giant fist made of bats.
I didn’t watch the entire series, but I got the impression that Penny Dreadful did “Shared Horror Universe” well. Albeit on TV rather than film.
I think the show shared space reasonably well, but god was the storyline a huge slog.
I didn’t remember when I wrote the comment, but this may be the reason I didn’t finish the series.
i thought it had a lot of potential but didn’t really enjoy the show despite liking the cast. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comes to mind as well of course
Amen to that.
I really enjoyed Penny Dreadful but it had zero mainstream appeal which illustrates the issue: horror in the classic gothic mold will always be a fringe thing. Buffy is considered one of the greatest shows of all time and it still only appeals to certain demographics. It’s like the success of Stephen King and peak X-Files (which was a horror anthology 95% of the time) have obscured that genre properties will probably always skew small. Anyway, Penny Dreadful suffers for ending early. Vanessa’s deeper mystery connects to an ancient Egyptian figure, and they were setting up season 4 to bring in mummies but it ended before that point.
I heard there’s a comic series continuing from where the show ended, which does have hints of Egyptology, but I don’t know if it’s any good.
All of Mike Flanagan’s work is the purest definition of Gothic horror and all of his shit are absolute bangers.Thespeak of Gothic horror among broad demos isn’t the issue, it’s how it’s approached. The scary shit isn’t the monsters themselves (Dracula and the mummy haven’t been scary for like 75 years) is what they represent in our society. Flanagan’s work mostly succeeds because the real horror is the unknown, or death, or addiction, or zealotry, or some other inherent human condition that we, as a society and as individuals, must face
I really enjoyed Dracula Untold and I tolerated the other films. This was a HUGE disappointment, though. As a fan of the genre, we’re woefully underrepresented.
Outside of Marvel none of these modern shared universe have worked. Marvel was lightning in a bottle. People point to the Universal Monsters as being a shared universe first but it really wasn’t the same thing. While monsters did start crossing over into others movies and “avengers” style team up movies happened there was very little continuity.
Monsterverse kinda worked. Though GvK sucked, mostly.
Nah, Godzilla vs Kong was an all-time great dumb movie. Don’t watch if you want characters or a comprehensible plot. But if you want Godzilla and King Kong beating the piss out of each other on an aircraft carrier, this is the movie for you!
Yeah that’s the part that didn’t suck. The friendship Kong had with the adorable little kid wasn’t half bad, either.
“Outside of Marvel none of these modern shared universe have worked.”
The Conjuring “universe” definitely worked.
It’s also reached the point of being untenable. It’s hard to draw in new fans when you really need to be familiar with 40 hours of previous movies to fully grasp who everyone is and what’s happening.
Agreed. Same goes for the Fast & Furious franchise. It’s almost too damn much.
The second they added Cruise into the mix, it was doomed. Not because he’s a bad actor or anything like that, but because it raised the level of expectations too high.
It was also just a weird genre for him. Most of his screen persona is based upon being Top __________. Pilot, bartender, race car driver, Irish immigrant, pool shark, lawyer, spy. He’s almost always the prodigy.
I’m pretty sure I remember reading that he wouldn’t take any part that made him the bad guy, but also needed to be the title character. So that’s how you end up with a “Guy who fights the bad Mummy, beats her, and then turns into Superhero Mummy” action movie that nobody wanted.
I never saw it since the critical and public reception were so bad, but that checks out.
I’m pretty sure I remember reading that he wouldn’t take any part that made him the bad guy, but also needed to be the title character.
Collateral.
That actually sounds like it could be good fun. But it would be better as a quippy young Spiderperson type role. Like a “you’ll never guess what happened to me today!” type jaunt.
I just rewatched it two days ago out of boredom. Its actually a decent action/zombies flick. There’s a bit too much of the ‘secret organization’ and Russell Crowe’s Hyde (his transformation isn’t even that great!) and Boutella gives it her all. Its the fact that Cruise being in it tilts the whole thing off its axis.
He managed to rescue a half-decent picture out of what may have been a total disaster (its pretty much ghost-directed by McQuarrie) but it lacked romance and enough ‘wow’ moments to justify its cost.
I’d still give it a B- for effort.
They need to look at today’s young horror filmmakers, and give these to them.
I don’t think you can really sell a horror ‘cinematic universe,’ for the reasons mentioned here. The ‘cinematic universe’ branding has very specific baggage at this point. But a bunch of mostly-unconnected movies that take place in the same setting, and as time goes on certain characters start recurring? I think you could make that work, as long as you resisted the urge to have some larger metanarrative weaving its way through the films in the background. Sure, maybe have a big ‘event’ every now and again, but we’ve seen how people can burn out when your movie franchise becomes an ongoing series like some bizarro-world TV show with three or four expensive episodes a year.
I made a similar comment above – what would drive random monsters to team up? It would have to be the human characters that form the connection between movies.
These are supposed to be scary monsters, having them team up like a more grotesque version of the Avengers was always ridiculousDracula, Frankenstein, etc are far better suited to star in horror movies than gory action movies.
I think the answer maybe surprisingly simple: go back to the original stories — as in, the books the original Universal Monster films were based on in the first place — and figure out what makes them scary.So many of these Universal Monster movies seemed obsessed with trying to make them relatable to modern audiences, but did it from the wrong direction and cluttered it up with bullshit. But those stories keep getting told and retold for a reason; they’re fairly simple narratives that tap into basic, primal fears that we all share. Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde — the fear of our darker self, the face we keep hidden from the world, the hypocritical nasty side of ourselves. Frankenstein — not just playing God, but fucking up our responsibility to someone else and having that mistake (literally) come back to shadow us. Dracula – the thing we view as the Other, and how it’s coming to eat us. Wolfman – someone else’s dark side and how it might eat us. The Invisible Man – what we can’t see might hurt us. And so on.You don’t need to reinvent the wheel with these stories. You just need to find a way to tap into those fears.
Smug Don Mattrick voice: We already have a horror multiverse IP for that, it’s called The (both old or new) World of Darkness rpgs. Surprised no one ever mined those except to make that one shitty 90s tv show Kindred: The Embraced.
In the late 90s and/or early 2000s New Line snatched up the collective film rights to all WoD RPGs with the stated goal of making an interconnected film series. What a world we’d live in if New Line had beaten Marvel/Disney to the punch. However, Screen Gems beat New Line to the punch with Underworld and now you know the rest of the story.
Thanks, Paul Harvey!Honestly didn’t know that.
The Universal monsters were at their best in the late 80s/early 90s when they were advertising various snacks and beverages.
Always relevant classic Tweet:Topher Florence
@topherflorenceback in the day if u did a tv show called surf dracula you’d see that fool surfing every week in new adventures but in the streaming era the entire 1st season gotta be a long ass flashback to how he got the surfboard until you finally get to see him surf for 5 min in the finale
Not trying to be snarky here but – there already IS a Universal cinematic monster universe. Here’s the order to watch (this is from memory, I might be missing a couple):DraculaFrankensteinBride of FrankensteinDracula’s DaughterSon of FrankensteinThe Wolf ManGhost of FrankensteinFrankenstein Meets the Wolf ManSon of DraculaHouse of FrankenstainHouse of DraculaAbbot and Costello Meet FrankensteinI realize now that I forgot The Invisible Man, and probably Phantom (the Claude Raines one) has a place, and I guess Creature from the Black Lagoon fits somewhere. And.. it might seem odd to include the Abott and Costello one, but it does fit into the Universal canon (and stars Lugosi and Chaney Jr). And I think it’s Abbott and Costello’s best movie, for whatever that’s worth.Now – this cinematic universe doesn’t have an overarching character, a Nick Fury- or Tony Stark-like presence, which I think the new, failed bunch of movies was going to have (though I still can’t figure who that should have been. Tom Cruise’s Mummy? I just don’t get how that would have worked.And it’s okay that it didn’t – see above. Most of these are readily available on DVD – my local county library has them all, and I think there are sets of most of them still pretty cheap on Amazon and elsewhere.
I’m sure the solution is to cast every part in every movie with a black woman. Except the bad guys and idiots, cast them as white men. See, they need to follow the current Hollywood rules to be successful. Everyone knows that.