News Head of Blumhouse Productions Interested in Reviving Dark Universe Franchise

[Kibbin]

Wasn't Dracula Untold supposed to be retroactively a Dark Universe movie?

Could be wrong but I think it's like the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern movie. A first stab at an MCU shared universe that was ignored by the next biggerer and betterer one because the first one was a bit poo.
Far as I'm concerned anybody has got to be a better fit for this than Kurtzman and considering they've done some horror movies before all the better.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Could be wrong but I think it's like the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern movie. A first stab at an MCU shared universe that was ignored by the next biggerer and betterer one because the first one was a bit poo.
Far as I'm concerned anybody has got to be a better fit for this than Kurtzman and considering they've done some horror movies before all the better.

No, as others have mentioned, it was designed as a stand-alone movie. The modern day final scene was added late in the project to allow it to be folded in to the shared universe after all. But then, as you say, it was a bit rubbish so they just ignored it instead.

 

[Kibbin]

No, as others have mentioned, it was designed as a stand-alone movie. The modern day final scene was added late in the project to allow it to be folded in to the shared universe after all. But then, as you say, it was a bit rubbish so they just ignored it instead.

So what was the end of the movie going to be? Still the same without that modern day scene or do we know if there was another planned?

 

[Grendelsbayne]

So what was the end of the movie going to be? Still the same without that modern day scene or do we know if there was another planned?

I'm pretty sure it was just going to be the past story as shown. Don't know that for certain, though.

 

[Christopher]

So what was the end of the movie going to be? Still the same without that modern day scene or do we know if there was another planned?

I don't think they changed the ending, just tacked on a present-day epilogue.

The idea for a shared Universal Monsters film series was developed while the Dracula movie was already in production, so at the time, they had no idea what it was going to be about except that it would be in the present day. So they tacked a brief present-day tag onto the movie so that the people developing the shared universe would have the option to fold it in if they decided that was a feasible idea. But unsurprisingly, once they got into developing their own plan, they decided it was better to start fresh with their own version of Dracula than try to shoehorn in something created separately.

 

[Kemaiku]

Yup, Dance's line in the epilogue was meant to be a teaser for a larger story. I can't remember how long after the movie wrapped that they called the three of them back to film that bit.

So like I said, they could still do a sequel to it and have it be a 2-3 picture stand alone Dracula project. If Universal does hand off the Dark Universe to someone else, it frees them up to work on that.

 

[Greg Cox]

I love this idea. Stop spending millions to try to turn the Universal Monsters into big, expensive, blockbuster tentpole action movies and get back to the idea of making them horror movies again. Blumhouse has proven they can make lean, mean, scary movies on a reasonable budget. Let them take a shot a it.

On the public domain front, only Dracula and Frankenstein and maybe The Invisible Man are technically public domain. The Wolf Man, the Mummy, and the Creature were all original creations, although, of course, there's nothing to stop other folks from making movies about a werewolf, a mummy, an invisible man, etc. You just can't call your werewolf "Lawrence Talbot" or "The Wolf Man" or lift anything specifically from the original movies.

 

[Skywalker]

If they ever take another stab at the Dark Universe idea, I wish they'd set it in the early 20th century, when the original movies were being made. The modern day setting for these monsters just doesn't feel right, IMO.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

There has been only one "dark universe" movie, The Mummy. If any studio wanted to model their movies based on the literary characters, all of these are in the public domain (unless Universal has some sort of film rights to theatrical versions.

Universal only has legal claim to the film adaptations, (including character names invented by their various employees and the make up designs of artists such as Jack Pierce), but not the source, so that means anyone could adapt Stoker's Dracula or The Jewel of the Seven Stars, or Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus. Further, another studio could do a "werewolf", or "sea creature" movie in any way they see fit, since Universal does not own myths or any similar stories predating their films.

If anyone wanted to use the specific set up from the Mummy or from previous movies then that would be different. But it would also be a stupid movie to base future films on The Mummy set up--just start fresh.

Yep.

 

[Awesome Possum]

If they ever take another stab at the Dark Universe idea, I wish they'd set it in the early 20th century, when the original movies were being made. The modern day setting for these monsters just doesn't feel right, IMO.

An American Werewolf in London had a werewolf work in the present when it was released, so did Ginger Snaps. The themes of all the stories still work and some like in Frankenstein are becoming a likely future. It can be done, it just hasn't been done well in a while.

 

[Christopher]

If they ever take another stab at the Dark Universe idea, I wish they'd set it in the early 20th century, when the original movies were being made. The modern day setting for these monsters just doesn't feel right, IMO.

Indeed, those movies were period pieces themselves, set in the late 1800s or early 1900s, rather than the then-present day. With the exception of the Gill-Man trilogy, which was made and set in the 1950s. (If there were other exceptions, I'm sure Greg Cox will be along to set me straight soon enough.)

 

[Gavin70]

It would be good if this was revived. The idea of a Dark Universe was one of the few shared universe ideas that I thought was worthwhile. They just took the wrong approach. Those monsters don't belong in an action franchise - they're horror movies. Take that approach, and be open to getting an R rating if that's appropriate, and they'd be huge hits.

 

[Greg Cox]

Indeed, those movies were period pieces themselves, set in the late 1800s or early 1900s, rather than the then-present day. With the exception of the Gill-Man trilogy, which was made and set in the 1950s. (If there were other exceptions, I'm sure Greg Cox will be along to set me straight soon enough.)

HI, Christopher. Here to set you straight.

Trying to date the settings of the old Universal horror movies is actually a bit tricky, but the idea that they were all period pieces, set in Victorian times or whenever, is a common misconception. Most of them are set in the "present"--i.e. in the 30s or 40s--but often in some sort of remote, backwards corner of Europe full that seems largely untouched by time: full of superstitious villagers, roving bands of Romany, etc.. THE WOLF MAN is actually set in present-day Wales, even though all the publicity for the recent remake bragged about it being set in Victorian England--"just like the original classic film!" (Drove me nuts, actually.)

Complicating things is the fact that often decades pass between the various sequels and yet the settings remain timeless. "Twenty years ago, your father discovered a lost Egyptian tomb," "years ago, your grand-father built a Monster that terrorized this village," etc.

The Mummy movies are particularly egregious in this respect. The Kharis films (which were filmed within a few years of each other) are all set in the present-day of the 1940s--but take place decades apart. ("But the Mummy was destroyed more than twenty years ago!") If you do the math, the last one should have been set in the distant future of 1980 or something!

 

[Christopher]

^Okay, I'll grant that Son of Frankenstein featured what appeared to be a 1939 Peugeot (so my Google search suggests), new at the time of the film's production. But the first two Frankenstein films did appear to be set earlier, consistent with the fact that they were about the father of Basil Rathbone's character in Son. And of course Bride of Frankenstein had that frame sequence with Mary, Percy, and Byron, implying that the film was meant to be set around the same time as the original book. Although that would be way too early to be consistent with Son.

 

[Greg Cox]

. But the first two Frankenstein films did appear to be set earlier, consistent with the fact that they were about the father of Basil Rathbone's character in Son.

But, as noted, generational arguments lead to madness where Universal Monster movies are concerned. Two movies after SON, we're dealing with Dr. Frankenstein's grand-daughter and yet the village is still much the same, with no evidence that two generations have passed since the original 1931 movie.

Even weirder is that the Europe of the old Universal movies seems to be untouched by World War II (with the notable exception of INVISIBLE AGENT in which the Invisible Man takes on the Nazis).

Digression: THE BLACK CAT with Karloff and Lugosi is a standalone that's not actually part of the Monsterverse, but it's notable in that it's very firmly rooted in history, with Lugosi and Karloff both scarred by the horrors they witnessed in World War I . . ..

 

[Christopher]

Even weirder is that the Europe of the old Universal movies seems to be untouched by World War II (with the notable exception of INVISIBLE AGENT in which the Invisible Man takes on the Nazis).

When I watched Universal's Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes film series a while back, I noticed an interesting progression in their treatment of WWII. When they took over the series in 1942 after the first two, Victorian-set films from Fox, they modernized the setting to the present day and had Holmes actively engaged in the war effort, since they thought wartime audiences wouldn't be interested in more conventional mysteries. But after the first three Universal films in 1942-3 with war- and espionage-based plots, they did two more films in '43-4 that were standard mysteries with only peripheral mentions of the war (one was set at a home for convalescing soldiers and the other had a carnival shooting gallery of the Axis leaders), and then from mid-1944 onward, they totally ignored the war, even in the 1945 Pursuit to Algiers, whose plot involved international intrigue. I guess that after a while, audiences wanted escapism from the war more than they wanted political relevance.

As it happens, Invisible Agent was from 1942, predating Universal's first Holmes film by just two months, so it would've aligned with the period when Universal (and the rest of Hollywood) was embracing wartime propaganda films. According to Wikipedia, The Mummy's Tomb from late '42 ends with a token mention of a character being drafted for WWII. But that seems to be about it for the Monsters series.

 

[Greg Cox]

As I recall, THE WOLF MAN opened around the same time as Pearl Harbor. Conventional wisdom is that audiences flocked to it in search of escapism from the war . . ..

 

[Christopher]

As I recall, THE WOLF MAN opened around the same time as Pearl Harbor. Conventional wisdom is that audiences flocked to it in search of escapism from the war . . ..

No doubt. But the government worked closely with the studios and encouraged them to develop propaganda films to rally the people behind the war effort and the need for sacrifice and unity and such. (Not necessarily a bad thing -- it gave us Casablanca.) So it wasn't just market forces shaping Hollywood's output at the time. Still, it looks like the propaganda push subsided as the war dragged on. (You know, I actually took a course on this in college, "Film and the History of World War II," but my memory of the details is rusty.)

 

[Awesome Possum]

I wished they’d just retroactively make the Brendon Frazier Mummy movies part of the canon. They’re fun.

 

[Christopher]

I wished they’d just retroactively make the Brendon Frazier Mummy movies part of the canon. They’re fun.

Frankly, the Fraser Mummy movies may be part of the problem. They were fun, yes, but they changed the Mummy franchise from horror into blockbuster action, and it was the Cruise/Boutella Mummy's attempt to be both horror and blockbuster action that kept it from working, making parts of it feel like unsuccessful attempts to imitate the Fraser movies (like having both mummies telekinetically control huge clouds of sand or particulate matter). As others have said above, getting the series back to its pure-horror roots might be a better approach.