MUMMY Reboot: Universal planning 'dark' franchise restart

[ancient]

Heck, the Spencer Tracy version isn't even a "sex pervert." He's just a bushy-eyebrowed guy who sort of resembles Burgess Meredith as the Penguin and whose transgressions are never made any clearer than just being generally uncouth and rude toward his girlfriend. The Hays Code forced them to censor the sexually-themed plot of the previous movie so heavily that the sense of menace is completely lost. I don't know why they didn't just tell the story differently, since the original book was very unlike the Fredric March film. Given the censorship on sexual themes, they could've just changed it so Hyde was a criminal and killer, rather than someone who was vaguely, implicitly maybe sort of abusing Ingrid Bergman offscreen if you read between the lines.

The Mr. Hyde in Steven Moffat's Jekyll had superpowers to a degree -- heightened senses and augmented strength and speed. And I think the original portrayal of Hyde as a superstrong giant monster traces back, not to the Hulk or to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but to Friz Freleng's trio of "Jekyll and Hyde" cartoons, Dr. Jerkyl's Hide in 1954, Hyde and Hare in 1955, and Hyde and Go Tweet in 1960.

The Looney Tunes version is definitely the earliest Hulkish Hyde I'm aware of, that version even annoyed me slightly as a kid, since I read the original at a very young age. In the original short story, Hyde goes to the bad part of town a lot, the implication from that is that he's running around with prostitutes & doing drugs - things too shameful for upper class Jekyll. Hyde is pretty much a metaphor for addiction & excess - after a while he consumes Jekyll and he can no longer turn back. In the end he's trapped as a wanted criminal & none of his old friends know who he is so they won't help him. That's why I dislike the Hulk version - the original is more interesting to me.

 

[Christopher]

In the original short story, Hyde goes to the bad part of town a lot, the implication from that is that he's running around with prostitutes & doing drugs - things too shameful for upper class Jekyll. Hyde is pretty much a metaphor for addiction & excess - after a while he consumes Jekyll and he can no longer turn back.

Sure, but the '40s version didn't have the freedom to acknowledge things like sex and drugs, so instead of faithfully remaking the March version with the sex and abuse censored out to the point that Hyde barely seemed threatening at all, they could've just written a new story that portrayed Hyde's excesses in terms they were allowed to at least talk about, like violent crime or murder.

Although that still wouldn't fix the complete miscasting of Tracy and Bergman in the leads (both great actors, but totally wrong for these parts) or the surprisingly uninspired and conventional direction in comparison to the innovation of the March version.

 

[Gaith]

Well, this is just sad: the 2017 Mummy reboot opens with the Universal Logo, then the much-derided Dark Universe Logo, then there's an ominous Ancient Egyptian epigraph. So far, so good... Except that, between the Dark Universe Logo and the epigraph, there's a studio card for - wait for it - Perfect World Pictures:

Blistering Barnacles! Perfect World Pictures is a Chinese company that no doubt fronted the production a large chunk of its budget, and as the core studio, Universal is entitled to put its logo first if it wishes, but - not that any studio card would fit gracefully there - could there possibly be a one card to put between the Dark Universe logo and the spooky epigraph?! Congratulations, Universal, for sabotaging your movie before its very first shot.

 

[FormerLurker]

In the original short story, Hyde goes to the bad part of town a lot, the implication from that is that he's running around with prostitutes & doing drugs - things too shameful for upper class Jekyll. Hyde is pretty much a metaphor for addiction & excess - after a while he consumes Jekyll and he can no longer turn back. In the end he's trapped as a wanted criminal & none of his old friends know who he is so they won't help him. That's why I dislike the Hulk version - the original is more interesting to me.

Have you ever seen the Anthony Perkins version? His secret formula is either a derivative of cocaine, or a combination of cocaine and other drugs. It's rather striking visually, as well.

 

[thribs]

That Shape of Water should be part of it. Have him team up with Cruise against Dracula.

 

[Morpheus 02]

That Shape of Water should be part of it. Have him team up with Cruise against Dracula.

When I saw it I was also thinking modern creature from the black lagoon