Universal Studios Classic Monsters Extended Universe - wuh?

[Tosk]

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_mummy_2017

Currently at 28%, which will of course fluctuate as time goes on. I'm not terribly surprised to see it that low. Universal be getting worried right now.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_mummy_2017

Currently at 28%, which will of course fluctuate as time goes on. I'm not terribly surprised to see it that low. Universal be getting worried right now.

They can do what they already did after Dracula Untold (which sits at 23%). Reboot the reboot!

 

[Christopher]

I'm disappointed by the reviews. I really wanted this franchise to be good.

But the more I've heard Kurtzman talk about the classic Universal Monsters franchise lately, the less knowledgeable about it he seems. I complained before about his reference to the electrodes in Frankenstein's Monster's neck as "bolts," and his erroneous statement about the number of Frankenstein and Wolf Man films preceding their crossover.

And then there's this from his Den of Geek! interview:

Here’s the weird thing about Bride Of Frankenstein. It is one of the weirdest movies you’ll ever see in your life. It is such a strange film. What amazes me is that the bride doesn’t show up until, what, the last ten minutes of the film? Doesn’t say anything, rejects Frankenstein, he pulls a lever and the building explodes and that’s the end of it. It’s not like she has long monologues, it’s not like you get to know her character, it’s not like she goes out into the world. There’s almost no screen time with her.

He's forgetting that Frankenstein is the name of the inventor, not the Monster. The title Bride of Frankenstein has a dual meaning -- it literally refers to Henry Frankenstein's fiancee-turned-wife Elizabeth, who plays a bigger role in the sequel than she did in the original, and whose abduction by Pretorius is what compels Henry to create the other "bride" for the monster. So it references both the bride Henry takes and the bride he makes. Kurtzman totally misses that. (I mean, look at the later titles. Son of Frankenstein is about Henry's son, not the monster's son. Ghost of Frankenstein features an appearance by Henry's ghost, although one that was tacked on to the story to justify the title. Even Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man technically refers to Henry's granddaughter Elsa Frankenstein meeting Larry Talbot. And House of Frankenstein refers to Henry's castle. For all that the Universal titles were meant to suggest the Monster to the audience, they all literally referred to Henry or a member of his family -- the one exception being Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.)

I don't dispute Kurtzman's claim that he's seen and loved all these movies... but when he gets these things wrong, I have to question whether he's really thought that hard about them. Enthusiasm isn't enough without insight and judgment, not if you're the guy in charge of creating the reboot.

On the other hand, I do like what he says in that article about wanting to bring more of a TV-style writer's room approach to the feature industry. I've felt for a long time that feature films suffer from a broken writing process that leaves writers with essentially no power or control and devalues the importance of writing as an ingredient in moviemaking, and as a result we get a ton of movies that are superbly made in most every respect but fall apart on the story and script level.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

But the more I've heard Kurtzman talk about the classic Universal Monsters franchise lately, the less knowledgeable about it he seems.

Alex Kurtzman? Unknowledgeable about a franchise? NEVER!

 

[Gaith]

Screen Junkies Dan Murrell and Andy Signore: "This movie isn't The Mummy - it's Dark Universe Part 1, featuring The Mummy."

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[Tosk]

Even as someone who though the trailers for this looked like the film would be boring and stupid, I'm still pretty disappointed in (apparently) how average it is. However wrong-minded it is to try and build a movie franchise instead of making sure your movie is good, it's a bummer that they have muffed it. As mentioned in the above video, hiring Kurtzman was step #1 down the wrong road. Why hire someone who had literally shown how ill-equipped they are to build an instant franchise out of one flick?

Plus, "Dark Universe" gets its own logo at the start? Weak.

 

[Morpheus 02]

I'm disappointed by the reviews. I really wanted this franchise to be good.

But the more I've heard Kurtzman talk about the classic Universal Monsters franchise lately, the less knowledgeable about it he seems. I complained before about his reference to the electrodes in Frankenstein's Monster's neck as "bolts," and his erroneous statement about the number of Frankenstein and Wolf Man films preceding their crossover.

I know, right. And I bet he refers to Superman's trunks as underwear.

Both of which the majority of the population would refer to both of those things as (bolts & underwear).

You'd almost think he was talking to normal people, and not obsessed fans with a type of OCD

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Even Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man technically refers to Henry's granddaughter Elsa Frankenstein meeting Larry Talbot.

The intent of that title was calling the monster "Frankenstein," not Henry's granddaughter, since by 1943, the general public simply identified the creature as Frankenstein.

 

[Hugo Rune]

Eh, having sat wincing my way through the latest Pirates film and scratched my head through the recent King Arthur flick, watching Tom Cruise gurn his way through a similar CGI-driven schlock-fest probably won't feel like the chore the critics seem to be making it out to be.

Mrs Rune loves the Depp, the Law and the Cruise, so we'll be off to see this on the weekend, reviews be buggered. The trailers looked dull as dishwater to me, but I've subjected her to enough films that have left the woman scorned, so I'm happy to watch Tom Cruise die up on screen again.

Sadly it won't be 100 times like in Live.Die.Repeat (which I kinda love to be honest)

Hugo - as insane and nonsense as Lock, Stock & One Power-Sword was, Arthur didn't wholly deserve the lashing the critics gave it either.

 

[Christopher]

However wrong-minded it is to try and build a movie franchise instead of making sure your movie is good, it's a bummer that they have muffed it.

That's the thing -- in the advance interviews, the producers were saying all the right things about how they weren't putting the franchise above the individual movie, that they were focusing on making this movie work well and letting the rest develop organically. Maybe that was just talk, or maybe the studio pressured them to put in more universe-setup stuff than they wanted.

As mentioned in the above video, hiring Kurtzman was step #1 down the wrong road. Why hire someone who had literally shown how ill-equipped they are to build an instant franchise out of one flick?

What are you talking about? Kurtzman's only ever directed one previous feature film, a romantic comedy called People Like Us with Chris Pine. If anything, the problem is his lack of a record in that role, one way or the other.

Oh, wait, you're probably referring to The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the way it tried to tack on shared-universe elements. Even so, he wasn't the director of that film either; he was one of the writers and executive producers, and in feature films, executive producer is a lower-tier role than producer, the inverse of the way it is in television. So the ultimate responsibility there did not lie with him; he and his collaborator Roberto Orci were just following the marching orders of Sony, the producers, and the director. If anything, his previous experience with the pitfalls of trying to tack shared-universe elements onto a solo-hero series after the fact should've been a good thing here, because he'd know what mistakes to avoid and would have more incentive to get it right when developing a shared-universe plan from the ground up.

Kurtzman has actually proven himself to be pretty successful as a producer of television franchises, including Sleepy Hollow, Hawaii Five-O, and Scorpion, and has produced or executive-produced a dozen different feature films prior to this one. (IMDb filmography) And one film that he's produced, Now You See Me, actually has resulted in a successful franchise; a sequel came out last year and a third film has reportedly been commissioned. So Hollywood is not going to damn him for a single film that wasn't even his responsibility.

 

[Gaith]

^ So, not only does Kurtzman have extensive TV experience (as in, multi-story small-screen franchises), most of his movie writing work has been on sequels, reboots, and would-be-franchise starters. Ergo, if anyone should know how to write a tight, exciting popcorn movie that satisfies audiences enough to generate positive word of mouth while also leaves them hungry for more, surely that someone should be him?

​

I actually found his People Like Us to be pretty good, in spite of the somewhat gimmicky hook, and I genuinely want to believe that he's a much better writer than his fairly lousy filmography suggests, and that the fault for those movies lies with studio interference and bungling, rather than the other obvious explanation for his success: that he's a slick talker/ass-kisser who churns out new requested drafts quickly and without pesky artistic complaints. As a writer at heart, my natural sympathies are with him, and not the studio suits. But if there's one project he should be able to successfully shepherd, and win the vital artistic battles over, it should be this, the would-be Iron Man 1 of the Dark Universe - and it sounds as though he's whiffed it. How many benefits of the doubt does he really deserve?

 

[JD]

The artistic side of his work doesn't mean anything when it comes to the studio deciding to hire him, all that matters is that he's been involved with projects that brought in the $$$, and he's been involved with plenty of movies and TV shows that have put butts in seats.

 

[Mudd]

I know, right. And I bet he refers to Superman's trunks as underwear.

Both of which the majority of the population would refer to both of those things as (bolts & underwear).

You'd almost think he was talking to normal people, and not obsessed fans with a type of OCD

 

[Christopher]

^ So, not only does Kurtzman have extensive TV experience (as in, multi-story small-screen franchises), most of his movie writing work has been on sequels, reboots, and would-be-franchise starters. Ergo, if anyone should know how to write a tight, exciting popcorn movie that satisfies audiences enough to generate positive word of mouth while also leaves them hungry for more, surely that someone should be him?

Presumably that's the logic that led the studio to hire him for that role in the first place. But there are no guarantees in the entertainment industry. Making good movies is hard -- there are a lot of things that can go wrong. So I'm not going to play the game of picking someone to scapegoat. Sure, I've found Kurtzman's work over the years inconsistent, but his record of success in the business speaks for itself. Theoretically, he could have done well with this. They gave him a chance to prove that he could. And it didn't work out. That's what sometimes happens when you take a chance.

 

[Gaith]

^ Thing is, the studio is privy to information we aren't - namely, the quality of the unproduced scripts he writes, as well as the ideas he brings to the table that don't make it to the screen. (Most of the actual movies with his writing credits on them are mediocre to bad.)

As for his profit-making... well, it'll be an interesting weekend.

 

[Christopher]

^ Thing is, the studio is privy to information we aren't

Which is all the more reason why we shouldn't make unfounded speculations about what goes on behind the scenes.

 

[Saul]

Going by the trailer and the fact that Kurtzman had his fingers made me pretty sure this was going to suck. Damn shame since I enjoy Tom Cruise movies. But sticking everything and the kitchen sink into this dark universe crap was bound to make it poor.

 

[marillion]

Dang.. Now at 19%... I don't often give a lot of credence to critic reviews of popcorn movies (I should have with Wild Wild West, but that is another story), but I'm not having high hopes.. Honestly, I felt like having Cruise and Crowe in this would give it some gravitas, but then again, looks what having big names in League of Extraordinary Gentlement did for it...

I'm sure I'll see it anyway... I didn't think the trailers were bad...

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

19% ? Damn, that's even worse than King Arthur: Legend of the Sword ! But that doesn't surprise me at all. What surprised me was Universal placing the first film of such an important franchise to a layman director.

 

[Morpheus 02]

I think a couple things are far "worse" than the director (per se), or how Kurtzman fails Christopher's standards of being an original (i.e. 1940's) Mummy fan.

1. It's "too soon" for a "reboot"... Even though this doesn't SEEM to have much to do with the Mummy series from over a decade ago, the commercials sure make it seem that way, where it seems to replay scenes we already saw in the first two Brendan Fraser Mummy movies . This Mummy movie feels a little like Andrew Garfield Spider-Man -- not made so much for the love of the character (as say Raimi Spider-Man or WOnder WOman) but rather as a cash grab. In Spider-Man , it was so Sony could have held onto movie rights (which could've worked with Miles Morales). In this case, this Dark Universe feels like a cash grab too.

2. Tom Cruise burn out ... I mean, he's kinda playing the same kind of character he usually, does right? I think that kinda grates on people after a while..or at least doesn't make them THAT enthusiastic. Like if Liam Neeson did Taken 4, I would consider it to be "Liam Neeson Kills People, chapter 9" (or whatever number is correct)

3. There isn't a built in fanbase waiting for this to happen. With the DC Film Universe, fans of DC comics (and recent TV shows) are watching the success of Marvel movies, and would LIKE to see the same for their favorites. Or with Harry Potter or some of the Young Adult movies-from-novels... people WANTED to see those in live action.

4. Would a big "teamup" be a better start to this? Have all the characters in one movie (for whatever reason...some group getting together to begin to hunt them down), and see who the breakout characters are? Maybe have some solo stories prewritten, but then jump on the most popular, and work on the others as it makes sense based on reaction and revision. That way, you don't waste money on a big solo movie no one actually wanted.

5. Timing of the movie. You had a whole slew of blockbusters come out, with Guardians still out there, then Pirates, and definitely WOnder WOman... wouldn't it have made sense to give movies that are part of a successful franchise a couple of weeks breathing room before introducing your own. Not sure what is opening, say June 23..but that is IN BETWEEN Wonder Woman and Spider-Man.. 2 kinds of franchises Universal would like to imitate (in terms of success). Also, at least for SOME schools, that Friday is at the beginning of summer break, and would be a good day (not just evening, but DAYTIME) to release a new "exciting" movie.
Also, in terms of timing...I have a limited budget...I only plan on seeing ONE movie a month, IF that. The only time I would be willing to break that would be like in November with Thor & Justice League...BOTH of which I am very interested in (though more Thor, due to the commercials)