I was watching a movie when I was struck with a realization that all my favorite scenes were very similar in style to dark universe theme. That got me thinking, what if dark universe was a movie? I previously talked about an epic universe movie, but it feels like the only good land that could be movie potential is dark universe, ironically considering how it's the only one without a movie. The story is already almost perfect, just add some explanatory details (how she caught all the monsters, some occasional humor from Igor, perhaps a burning windmill scene) and an explosive finale of all the monsters escaping. With some good cinematography and special effects, you could make an amazing suspenseful thriller! Surely, I can't be the only one that sees this, right!?
VelocicoaterFan is correct. Universal tried to reboot and modernize their Monsters franchise by starting with individual character films to be followed by an eventual Avengers-style "team up" that would culminate in a storyline where all of the Monsters would appear in the movie. The problem is that the Kurtzman/Orci teamup tapped to develop the franchise didn't wield the same control and vision that Marvel was able to execute as part of the MCU. The duo came on late in the production of Dracula: Untold starring Luke Evans, and the next movie, Tom Cruise's The Mummy ended up failing pretty miserably, with the studio lacking cohesion between the various directors and producers selected to create the first round of films. If you've actually seen The Mummy, it features Russell Crowe as Henry Jekyll who was initially intended to be the conduit that threaded the individual character films together. The next film, Reinfeld, ended up being more of a campy comedy that gave more fan service to Nicholas Cage than the Monsters series. The critically praised Invisible Man starring Elizabeth Moss was intended to be part of the franchise, but was also stylistically was very different from a classic Monsters movie and a major departure from what was established in The Mummy being a much lower budget film.
Ultimately, I do think there is some potential here for a successful series, but I think Universal might have to hand the IP to Blumhouse if they want to move forward. That will mean movies with minimal budgets, zero stars, and only loose continuity between films. It's either that or to keep funding individual projects that are going to carry high risk because of the varying amount of control the studio will have on each film.
It’s a shame that Universal put the cart so far ahead of the horse with its shared Dark Universe because I really do think that the IP is rife with possibilities for fantastic storytelling, from horror to offbeat comedy and everything in between. I remember the hype video where they announced Crowe as Jekyll, Tom Cruise as whoever the he played next to Sofia Boutello’s Mummy, and Javier Bardem as Frankenstein’s monster. And I also remember Johnny Depp was attached to star as the Invisible Man. As @Russell stated above, Luke Evans’ Dracula: Untold was also a part of it all and was kind of a tacked-on after the fact “soft launch” of the shared universe. Anyhow, we’ll never know what might have been…
The Mummy 2017 is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Does anyone remember when they released the trailer for it, but without any dialogue or music? The plane-crashing sequence was just silence with Tom Cruise awkwardly screaming lol
If you want a good laugh, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1jg5YlQuT8
(Start at 1:00)
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I don't know if you know about this, but Universal tried making a Dark Universe movie franchise long before EU. It crashed and burned before the plane even got off the ground. While I personally think that a story about the Celestians and the Portals would make a more complex and compelling story, I think we should leave theme park movies out of theaters. PotC was the only good one before they ran that franchise into the ground.