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Universal Studios Classic Monsters Extended Universe - wuh?

theenglish said:
There was a piece on BBC News (I think) that discussed the idea that The Mummy was specifically made and marketed to countries outside of the US where there is a bigger demand.
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Sure, but that doesn't make underperforming The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor's domestic opening weekend (which didn't even have a 3D surcharge) and only barely beating its Metacritic score (34 to 31) any less embarrassing.

Reverend said:
I was actually thinking while writing the previous post that the whole thing would be so much more interesting if it was all set in the 1920's or thereabouts. It'd make the Lovecraft connection so much more appealing and easy to integrate and allow for a broader latitude in how these things are presented.
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And now I'm picturing an Old School Dark Universe fan trailer with clips from The Mummy '99, The Wolfman '10, Victor Frankenstein, She Creature, and the like... and it's much cooler than what we seem to be getting. :bolian:

Relevant (for the studio; we're already on its wavelength):

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People are saying The Mummy does a poor job of franchise-building. What are they talking about?! The Bembridge Scholars Evelyn keeps mentioning is clearly the academic front for a secret society of supernatural-centric adventurers! And, what with the 1930s setting, the big crossover movie could be the various adventurers taking down an evil Third Reich plot - that's great world building!

... Huh? Oh, the new one? Oh. :p
 
JD said:
He also directed the last two Twilight movies and Disney's Beauty and the Beast, so also has some experience with larger scale CGI heavy movies too.
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My point was not at all about whether he has the experience to do CGI-heavy movies. My point was that he has experience with doing something else. Like I said, the folks behind Dark Universe have claimed that they want their films to have a range of different tones. So it's nothing as simplistic as "can you or can't you handle CGI?" It's about not limiting themselves to that single idiom of filmmaking.

More to the point, what matters about Gods and Monsters in this context is not merely that it lacks CGI. What matters is that it's a movie about the director of Bride of Frankenstein, and that it features recreations of scenes from that film. It's that prior experience with a film taking a look at BoF from an unusual angle that makes Bill Condon an interesting choice for a remake of BoF. It offers possibilities that have nothing to do with how much CGI there is.
 
Sorry, I realize my post wasn't as clear it could have been, I just meant that he also had experience with big blockbuster movies, so hopefully he can use put the two together to bring us a movie that is both a good remake of Bride and has the CGI spectacle expected of a summer blockbuster.
 
JD said:
Sorry, I realize my post wasn't as clear it could have been, I just meant that he also had experience with big blockbuster movies, so hopefully he can use put the two together to bring us a movie that is both a good remake of Bride and has the CGI spectacle expected of a summer blockbuster.
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But that's not what I'm hoping for. Like I said, the DU makers have said in interviews that they don't want all their films to be cookie-cutter blockbusters. They may even do some low-budget movies. It would be refreshing to have a shared-universe franchise with that kind of variety. Really, that should be part of the value of a shared universe, the fact that it can encompass things that aren't all the same as each other but have their own different styles and approaches. Like how the Marvel Cinematic Universe is able to encompass both Ant-Man and Jessica Jones. If all the different titles are in the same style, why even bother having different ones?
 
Not all big blockbuster movies are exactly alike. There are plenty of ways they can do them in a different style and still be considered big blockbuster movies.
 
JD said:
Not all big blockbuster movies are exactly alike. There are plenty of ways they can do them in a different style and still be considered big blockbuster movies.
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You're still not hearing my point. They have said in interviews that it's at least possible that not all the Dark Universe movies would even be blockbusters. They don't necessarily want them all to be. This universe might include smaller, lower-budget movies alongside the big-budget ones, and that would make it something different from all the other shared-universe franchises out there. I think that's interesting. I think it would be a good idea, a fresh variation on the formula.
 
theenglish said:
There was a piece on BBC News (I think) that discussed the idea that The Mummy was specifically made and marketed to countries outside of the US where there is a bigger demand. It referenced China and India IIRC. The thesis was that falling stars like Tom Cruise are still big draws overseas, and that is the marketing for The Mummy.
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I was just reading this, and looking at the box office results, The Mummy has earned more than Wonder Woman in foreign markets for the past two weeks in a row (NOTE: this was edited to fix a mistake pointed out in comments below) . Of course, both pale in comparison to The Pirates movie.

http://www.cbr.com/mummy-pirates-of...Distribution&utm_campaign=CBR-FB-P&view=lista
 
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Mr. Adventure said:
^ not going by the numbers at boxofficemojo.com
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My mistake I believe the article was referring to foreign box office--not world wide. I also confused weekend or overall numbers.
As for the foreign totals so far:
Pirates of the Caribbean (500,000,000 --released on May 26)
Wonder Woman ( $297,200,000 --released on June 2)
The Mummy ($239,100,000 --released on June 9)
 
theenglish said:
I was just reading this, and looking at the box office results, The Mummy has earned more than Wonder Woman world wide. Of course, both pale in comparison to The Pirates movie.

http://www.cbr.com/mummy-pirates-of...Distribution&utm_campaign=CBR-FB-P&view=lista
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theenglish said:
My mistake I believe the article was referring to foreign box office--not world wide. I also confused weekend or overall numbers.
As for the foreign totals so far:
Pirates of the Caribbean (500,000,000 --released on May 26)
Wonder Woman ( $297,200,000 --released on June 2)
The Mummy ($239,100,000 --released on June 9)
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It's obvious that Wonder Woman has beat The Mummy in domestic/US box office and in foreign box office and in worldwide box office.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=wonderwoman.htm

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=mummy2016.htm
 
If you want a movie that does well overseas--I can think of nothing better than something like THE KEEP--but told from a different perspective.

Huge junks of the tresure fleet do make it to the new world. Some threat is seen hiding in barren rocks of the southwest--and is overcome. Native Americans and some of the sailors become friends--and the ships return to China--and the Emporer is asked to burn them.
 
Good riddance. The whole thing sounded silly, from concept to the franchise name. And the trailers for The Mummy looked awful, so I didn't bother.
 
I'm disappointed. I wanted this to work. The Universal Monsters were the first shared-universe cinematic franchise, so if any attempt deserved to succeed, it was this one. It sounds like The Mummy suffered more from giving Tom Cruise too much creative control than from any deficiency in the basic shared-universe concept. Though maybe it would've been better to follow the original films' (and the MCU's) lead and just focus on making a number of good, standalone monster films first, then building connections in the sequels.
 
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