Almost six years ago now, just before the Tom Cruise-led “The Mummy” remake was about to hit cinemas, Universal Pictures released an official photo announcing their ‘Dark Universe’ initiative.
An attempt to build a cinematic universe akin to Marvel, but for the Universal classic monsters, the project was the brainchild of “The Mummy” director Alex Kurtzman and regular “Fast and Furious” scribe Chris Morgan.
The now infamous photo posted in May 2017 awkwardly put Cruise, Russell Crowe (Dr. Henry Jekyll), Javier Bardem (Frankenstein’s Monster), Johnny Depp (The Invisible Man) and Sofia Boutella (The Mummy) together in a shot. In addition, Angelina Jolie was sought for “The Bride of Frankenstein” whilst new takes on Phantom of the Opera, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dracula and Creature from the Black Lagoon were all in early planning.
Then “The Mummy” bombed with reviewers and pulled in just $80 million domestic and some of the worst reviews of Cruise’s career. Worldwide managed to save it, the film ultimately taking in $409 million from a $125 million budget, but the message was clear – “no!”.
By November of that year, the ‘Dark Universe’ was essentially dead and all that remains is a video logo and a photo that became a part of internet history. Universal instead opted for standalone, lower-budget takes on the material – resulting in Leigh Whannell’s acclaimed 2020 update of “The Invisible Man”.
This week in cinemas we get “Renfield,” a self-contained dark comedy take on Dracula that hails from director Chris McKay, who is quite aware of the Dark Universe concept that failed.
Speaking with Slashfilm this week, he explains why he thinks the Dark Universe fell apart:
“I think that everyone, even if you are in a Marvel universe or a shared universe situation, you should always just focus on that movie. Make a good version of that movie, regardless of whether it’s a sequel or the trilogy or whatever, just concentrate on that.
I think sometimes where movies go wrong is where they’re trying to do too much. The Dark Universe thing could’ve worked there. There’s compelling … who wouldn’t want to see Angelina Jolie play Bride of Frankenstein or Javier Bardem play Frankenstein’s Monster? That would be really cool. I think, when you try to also do all these other things and you haven’t established what the tone is, what the world is, I think that’s where things go wrong.”
Indeed, Universal has embraced the standalone approach wholeheartedly with a second Dracula project, “The Last Voyage of the Demeter,” arriving later this year with no connection to “Renfield” beyond featuring Dracula as a character. The first trailer for ‘Demeter’ is expected out this week.
