With Marvel and DC’s superhero films proving that geeky franchises can flourish, it makes sense that Universal is peering back into the vault at its OG franchise: classic monster movies.
We’re talking, of course, about the black-and-white Frankenstein, Dracula, and Creature From the Black Lagoon on which we all grew up—or, for younger movie audiences, watched other movies parody and reference without achieving the same staying power as these horror masterpieces.
We’ve known for a while that such a massive revival was in the works, but now we know who’s helming it: Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan.
The news about Kurtzman’s involvement comes on the heels of the announcement that he and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 writing partner Robert Orci are splitting up to pursue separate projects. While it’s unclear if Kurtzman will pen any of the scripts, Universal’s horror icon shared universe is an exciting concept: All of the horror greats, united under a common storyline, maybe even facing off against recurring characters. He’s joined by Morgan, who’s written the screenplays for the Fast and the Furious films since 2006, so we’re guaranteed at least one thrilling car chase between Dracula and the Mummy.
Obviously, the last fifteen years have seen standalone pictures like The Mummy, Van Helsing, and the forthcoming Dracula Untold. But now the plan is to reboot these films—The Mummy is first up, on April 22, 2016—and others that haven’t been touched since the original versions. Kurtzman and Morgan will help oversee production, marketing, and everything else ensuring that movie audiences see these films as a cohesive whole.
We love this idea of an interconnected horror universe—though we’re curious to see if, in linking all of the movies, they go more for old-school cheese factor or try to scare the socks off us all over again.
Photos: Universal Pictures
Can an interconnected universe work if its all not contemporary. This is all going to be set in the Pulp era, right?
This also seems to be a movie way of trying to capture “HBO box set” virtues in a cinema format.
Any chance the recurring protagonists unifying the series would be Abbott and Costello? :D
But seriously, a little unification sounds fine to me. I feel the Gill-Man trilogy would be much stronger if the human leads had continued from one film to the next. The first two Creature films are basically two halves of a King Kong pastiche, plot-wise, but it undermines that when the leading lady’s identity changes in the second part (and when the second leading lady is nowhere near as stunning or charismatic as the first).
It’s kind of hard to see the Gill-Man coexisting with the older monsters, though. He was the least supernatural of the Universal monsters, more just an exotic animal that was approached from a purely scientific perspective by the characters. He was a product of the 1950s, when society’s fears and hopes had become more grounded in science. True, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Invisible Man were both creations of science, but a more Gothic science of a more superstitious era, so they fit better with supernatural monsters like Dracula and the Mummy.
Weren’t they trying to do something similar with the Underworld and I, Frankenstein films?
Anyone remember The Monster Squad?
EvanThomas @@.-@:
You mean this?
http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/monster-squad-tv-series/
Writer: a Job on set to cover owner/artist, Morgan Chris is just a cover name!
1-7 are owned by one person!
Morgan’s created the tv program, he is not that good at creation! It’s the boys and girls of the older offices in universal that have the extreme excellent stuff!
I want to try a teen pop, city based themed, war orientated love trail maker! 3 set screenplay, Monster Binder.