This weekend, Universal will launch the start of their brand new Dark Universe monsters franchise with a reboot of The Mummy. Directed by Alex Kurtzman, the film will bring together some of our favorite classic monsters in an all new shared universe involving Universal Monsters. It will be followed up by the Bill Condon-directed Bride of Frankenstein, starring Javier Bardem; Creature of the Black Lagoon from screenwriters Jeff Pinkner and Will Beall; The Invisible Man, starring Johnny Depp; and Van Helsing, from Prometheus scribe Jon Spaihts, Arrival writer Eric Heisserer, and Dan Mazeau.
But that is just the beginning. Because Kurtzman says there are more Dark Universe films on the way. In a new interview, the man responsible for building this new Universal Monsters shared universe says Dracula, Frankenstein, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Phantom of the Opera are being developed. More on the story below.
Kurtzman talked to Fandom about the future titles in the works:
“We know we’re going to do Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Phantom of the Opera, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Invisible Man.”
Both The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Phantom of the Opera were released by Universal back in the 1920s, and both had Lon Chaney starring in the title role. The former, based on Victor Hugo’s classic novel, is perhaps best known for being both a Disney animated musical and a Disney Broadway musical. The latter is also known for being adapted into a stage musical.
These additions indicate that there are plans to expand the universe beyond the existing films. If the films do take us back to the past, maybe Prodigium, the secret organization whose purpose is to track, study, and””when necessary””destroy evil embodied in the form of monsters in our world, has existed a lot longer than we thought. It also opens the door for other 1920s Universal monster films like The Cat and The Canary, The Man Who Laughs, and The Last Performance to be released.
Kurtzman added:
“There are characters within those films that can grow and expand and maybe even spin off. I think that digging into deep mythologies about monsters around the world is fair game for us, as well as connecting the monsters that we know to some surprising monsters could also be really interesting.”
The interview also tells us that Universal is looking into bringing Dracula into the Dark Universe. Or it could have been something he said by mistake. But if it’s not, then the new Dracula will most likely be a reboot. The studio had tried to launch the Universal Monsters shared universe when they released Dracula Untold in 2014. But because the film didn’t meet box office expectations, the studio was forced to go back to the drawing board.
The Mummy opens in theaters on June 9, 2017.
[Source: Fandom]
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