Well, they've said in interviews that the movies will have different tones, and some may even be low-budget. I guess they felt they needed to go big with The Mummy because audiences would expect something like the Fraser movies. But Bride of Frankenstein is from the same guy who directed Gods and Monsters, the biopic about the director of the original Bride, so that could well have a completely different tone. Let's hope so.
Going big straight out of the gate is usually a guaranteed way to find yourself faceplanting.
Going back to Marvel as an example of this sort of thing done right, they started out fairly small with Iron Man. Yes, it was a bombastic action movie with several set pieces and a slightly weaker third act, but at the same time it had a contained plot, a tight focus on character and it knew what it was about. Only in the post credit do they even *hint* at a wider context and it wasn't until four or five movies later with Avengers that they really drew back the curtains and let loose with the epic craziness.
It's good to want to start strong, but that strength should be in storytelling, characterisation and a little bit of world building. You don't want to blow your wad early, else you're not leaving yourself anywhere to go later except more of Tom Cruise running away from CG clouds.
I think you're right.. And I think that is why the Brendan Frasier Mummy movies worked so well.. Sure, they had lots of (sometimes sketchy) CGI, but they were fun, action adventure popcorn flicks. They didn't take themselves too seriously but still had a good story. Making these monster movies too epic and serious is the wrong path to take, I think.. I mean.. When has a traditional monster movie REALLY worked in recent years? Dracula Untold was meh.. Del Toro's Wolfman was a snoozer.. I Frankenstein had the right idea but just wasn't very good... Van Helsing could have been good, but it too, just wasn't well executed. Gary Oldman's Dracula is the last one that I remember that really was effective.. It was the right amount of creepy/campy/serious... I hate Keanu in the lead role, but the other players worked really well, I thought..
Just MHO, of course...
Yeah, when I think great modern monster movies in the old traditional sense, I think of Alien, The Thing and The Fly. There are more recent examples like say Splice, Troll Hunter and The Mist but they didn't reach anywhere near the notoriety of the older examples.
For "successful" modern monster movies you're going to have to go to more action oriented fair like the Underworld movies, 28 Days/Weeks/Mounths Later (see also everything zombie related over that last decade or two from the DotD remake to TWD) and I suppose Pacific Rim and Cloverfield?
Anyway, to my way of thinking the smart way to approach this is to make a movie true to the roots of the source material first and allow room to organically weave in connections to the other properties, but don't overemphasise it. Just make sure there's a common thread that they can all relate to.
In this case I think their version of the infinity stones should be something to do with immortality. The fountain of youth, the philosophers stone, the holy grail, something like that. I mean think about it, a blighted form of immortality, undeath or death deferred is something that connects most of these creatures, no? Vampires, werewolves and cursed mummies could be seen as a supernatural manifestation, while Frankenstien's monster & The Bride, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and The Invisible Man are science's attempts to achieve the same effect with equally blighted results.
Like perhaps this powerful thing, whatever it might be can change the nature of living things and fragments of it have been found all over the world throughout history?
No clue where the Creature from the Lagoon would fit into that. Perhaps the "Macguffin of Youth" originated in Atlantis and the creature is a relic/product of that same technology and that's you're tie-in to the larger mythic elements? Or maybe just use the name Atlantis, but really do something closer to 'At the Mountains of Madness', putting a Lovecraftian cosmic horror twist of the more familiar mythical story elements.
Like say the Titans were pretty much the Elder Gods and the pagan deities and pantheons were their spawn and half-breed offspring. That would open up a whole lot of storytelling possibilities, no?
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