Classic Universal Monsters Being Rebooted in a Shared Universe
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- July 17, 2014
By Danny F. Santos (doddleNEWS)
Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, Creature Of The Black Lagoon, The Invisible Man, The Mummy, these are the greatest monster movies of yesteryear, and under the Universal banner. Like I said in my Geek’s Reaction to the Dracula Untold trailer, there have been rumors that Universal was thinking of building a unified universe of these monsters– looks like we know who the architects of that plan will be.
Deadline is reporting that Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan are in the early stages of developing the shared universe of Universal monsters. Kurtzman, of course, is one half of the writing duo that was responsible for the Star Trek, Amazing Spider-Man, and Transformers series, with Roberto Orci (they recently and amicably split up their write/producting partnership), while Morgan has five of the seven The Fast & The Furious films under his belt.
We don’t know if they’ll be writing any of the horror films themselves, or just overseeing the projects (a la James Cameron and a team of writers on the Avatar sequels) that could come together in an Avengers-like film. Kurtman and Morgan are already looking for new talent to bring onto the project, as well as going through the Universal catalog to see what other properties can fit into the shared universe.
The first official property to kick off the universe would be the as still untitled and director-less Mummy reboot in 2016, being written by Jon Spaihts. It’s apparently going to be set in modern day, which brings up a very interesting question of whether Universal’s Dracula Untold will also be part of this universe. Obviously Dracula, the character, would be a part of the shared franchise, but will it be Luke Evans in the part? Is Dracula Untold the unofficial prequel for the series? I suppose that it depends on how it fares at the box office.
We’ll definitely get Van Helsing in there somewhere at some time. Orci and Kurtzman were attached to develop the film before their split, with Tom Cruise set as the title character reimagined for the modern day. Sounds like it fits in with the time-period planned for The Mummy reboot.
I have to wonder what a shared universe film would look like? Would it be a Frankenstein vs. The Mummy vs. Dracula? Would it be humanity vs. the monsters, or would it be the monsters vs. something else? Personally, I would hate it if they made the monsters anti-heroes of some kind, and I hope they stay the villains of the piece, like The Sinister Six. I don’t mind if the audience is sympathetic to them, but lets me reasonable here, they are called monsters for a reason.
What do you think, could a unified universal monster franchise work, or will this be just like Stephen Sommers’ awful Van Helsing? Everyone seems to be getting on the shared universe bandwagon, following Marvel’s success, including DC Comics/Warner Bros., Fox (Fantastic Four and X-Men), and Sony (Spider-Man). Let us know in the comments below!
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