Universal Monsters Cinematic Universe

Not going to lie. Given Konami's desperate attempt to not do anything with Castlevania, I'd really like a Spiritual Adaptation of the Castlevania version of Dracula on the big screen. Just a nice film version of Castlevania: Bloodlines, basically.

Edited by Larkmarn on Jun 8th 2020 at 5:24:45 AM

David Koepp's Bride of Frankenstein is back on.

Koepp on Bride of Frankenstein's story details.

I never really thought of Frankenstein's creations being resurrected necessarily, but it's an interesting approach.

Edited by GrandmasterKiramidHead on Jun 20th 2020 at 3:16:41 AM

Leigh Whannell will be directing The Wolfman, starring and with a story conceived by Ryan Gosling.

I finally rewatched The Invisible Man, and it's even better the second time around. Whannell directing the new Wolfman gives me some more confidence in it. I'm not sold on the alleged "Nightcrawler but with a werewolf" pitch, but I'll give it a shot.

James Wan and Julius Avery Working on a Van Helsing Movie for Universal.

So... Is there a lineup? I've only heard of two films being in this franchise. Are there more coming? I love this more supernatural bent to things. And Charles Dance as a Big Bad?! YES PLEASE

...Should we tell him?

? It seemed like y'all had been discussing some other movies, but I'd not been able to find anything on them. Invisible Man seems like a fun idea. Frankenstein would be pretty neat too

I think they were more referring to the fact that you necroed a thread from 2 years ago, which naturally doesn't have a lot of news.

Furthermore, because of the failure of The Mummy, there aren't plans for a Dark Universe, like they had hoped.

Invisible Man was made as a standalone, and did prove to be quite profitable. But things like a Van Helsing movie or anything else are still very much in the air and in the earliest stages of development, as Universal pivots away from what didn't work.

Or, short version, The "Dark Universe" is long dead at this point. It doesn't exist.

Although the Dark Universe is dead we did continue to discuss Universal's various monster movie projects in this thread. And although the thread died a bit over a year ago, there hasn't been a complete lack of news on those movies. For instance, Renfield is coming along fine, set to release next year, and we've already got pictures of Nicolas Cage in his Dracula makeup.

...And I just learned today that Karyn Kusama's Dracula adaptation was cancelled. It wasn't actually from Universal Studios, but we discussed it here when it was announced so I feel like this is the best place to express how disappointed I am that it's not getting made. According to the descriptions that came out only as we got the news of its cancellation the film was going to be centered on Mina Harker (Jasmine Cephas Jones had already been cast in the role), a character whose role in the story is consistently diminished by adaptations in spite of her being arguably the protagonist of the novel.

I think we were just assuming it was Universal because Blumhouse had just done The Invisible Man for them.

That sucks to hear about the Dracula movie. I think I saw somebody on the forums (or maybe Reddit, can't remember) somewhere speculating that Morbius's performance ended up indirectly killing it, which would definitely be a massive shame if true.

Edited by lbssb on May 6th 2022 at 10:28:41 AM

And even if the Dark Universe was happening, Charles Dance's character was nothing at all to get excited about. He basically showed up, read five lines, did some inserts, and went home. And the fact they replaced Charlie Cox as Caligula with him in reshoots is just frustrating.

D:

Well dang that's disappointing

We already have a series about a Universal monster crossover. It's called the Munsters, and it's getting a movie this year.

It was brought to my attention that The Last Voyage of the Demeter is being distributed by Universal, so that's two Universal Dracula movies coming out next year.

A glimpse into what the Dark Universe Bride of Frankenstein would have been about. And it sounds like Koepp's modernized version has been cancelled as well.

A draft of the Dark Universe Wolfman has come to light.

And we have a Renfield trailer.

Couple thoughts:

1. Is this explicitly part of the Monsters Universe or Dark Universe or whatever? It feels like a new thing.

2. It looks amazing. At least the first minute does. They really have something with the whole Dark Comedy “trials of the henchman in therapy” thing - maybe even a parody romantic comedy. What would really ruin this is if they as always tried to do absolutely everything at once again and leaned too hard into the superhero action flick thing at the same time.

3. Hahahahaha Dracula.

4. Do we have a trope page for that musical chord we hear at 0:51? I feel like that’s all over the place in trailers, either at the beginning or when it slows down for a second because something dramatic is about to happen.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 6th 2023 at 11:10:50 AM

NO, NOT THE RATS!!

The shared universe idea is dead, I'm just using this a convenient catch all Universal Monster thread now.

We're going to get so many memes from this. A reference to Vampire's Kiss is essential imo.