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Why Universal's Answer To The MCU Was Dead On Arrival
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Mar 31, 2025
The original Universal Monsters are by far some of the most iconic horror characters in film history. Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, and others were some of the first horror characters to frighten audiences for decades to come. Of course everything has to be rebooted these days, and Universal's attempt at retooling the Universal Monsters to fit a more modern approach failed at every turn.
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We're just going to take a minute, and we're all going to come up with a new plan
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You don't know what you're doing. Really? I know exactly what I'm doing. In the mid-2010s, Universal dusted off the proverbial coffin of their most beloved franchise
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the Universal Monsters. The powers that be decided to resurrect them with an all-star
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cast of actors and directors tasked with the mission of creating a cinematic universe
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to compete with Marvel. And yet, for everyone involved, this monstrous resurrection only had
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disastrous results. These three men were propelled to superstardom by the Universal monster movies
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And that's exactly the formula that Universal was hoping to mimic with their new dark universe
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Attach major stars to these iconic characters and let the money roll in
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That's your plan? In May of 2017, Universal made a splashy announcement. A press release coupled with
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publicity shot of Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, and Sofia Boutella
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announcing the arrival of the next big cinematic event, the Dark Universe
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The announcement also heralded the involvement of a murderer's row of behind-the-camera talent
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Chris Morgan, the writer and producer behind the Fast and the Furious franchise, Alex Kurtzman, head honcho of Star Trek and Transformers
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and Tom Cruise collaborators Christopher McQuarrie and David Koepp, among others, were all named
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After flirting with doing something with the monsters for a long time, Universal was finally putting their money on the table
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The only holdup was that this wasn't the first time they tried to do this with the classic monsters
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Going all the way back to the beginning, what eventually became the Universal Monsters
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initially were just desperate adaptations of beloved horror novels. Todd Browning's Dracula, released in 1931, was the first, and often considered the best of these films
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I am Dracula. But in rapid succession, James Whale made Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, and Bride of Frankenstein
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which opened the gateway for The Wolfman and a bevy of sequels. And these sequels formed the first interconnected cinematic universe on film
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It's alive! It's alive! It's alive! Each of the central characters of the Universal horror films got their own franchises
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And as time went on, they got more self-involved, myopic, and needlessly complex
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The final installments in the Universal Monsters Collective franchise were dubbed Monster Rally
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Films, largely because they were light on plot and heavy on cameos of the beloved characters
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that went bump in the night. But the more Universal return to the well, the less money the films made
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There were various attempts at reclaiming the glory of Universal throughout the years
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from Popola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, Welcome to my home. to that one Frankenstein movie that starred Robert De Niro
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However, they never fully attempted to mimic the interconnectedness of the original Universal monster films
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In 2014, Universal made their first play to recreate the interconnected filmic world
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Dracula Untold was a mashup of classic Dracula iconography and Batman Begins. Originally intended
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as just a Dracula project that would update the character for contemporary audiences, the film was
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altered just two weeks before it was released. Reshoots retroactively pulled the character into
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a connective film universe with the other horror stalwart icons of Dread that Universal was
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preparing to launch. However, despite a new ending scene that showed Dracula in modern day
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and set up a new conflict, audiences did not respond to the film
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That, coupled with a low box office return due in part to the fact that the film's release date was shifted three different times
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caused Universal to step back and re-evaluate. The failure of Dracula Untold sparked the need to publicly signal
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that Universal was going to double down on the idea of a modern horror universe
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That's when they brought in the previously mentioned list of megastars, writers, and directors
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Javier Bardem was set to star in a reboot of Bride of Frankenstein. opposite Angelina Jolie as the bride
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Johnny Depp would be the Invisible Man. Russell Crowe would appear as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
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and act as a sort of Nick Fury for the film universe. What do you think you're doing
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Evaculate your man. We'll take it from here. And Tom Cruise would star as an adventurer and Indiana Jones character for The Mummy You think you want Frankenstein or Dracula the two most iconic characters Universal had to be the big debut But with Dracula untold being a misfire Universal opted for The Mummy
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largely due to the fact that the Brendan Fraser franchise had a largely positive cultural opinion
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The Mummy reboot had been kicking around for close to a decade. The version that was released follows Nick Morton, a US Army sergeant
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who makes money on the side stealing priceless items from archaeological dig sites and selling
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them on the black market. Hey, we are not looters. We are liberators of precious antiquities. Right
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He, along with his comedic sidekick Chris Vale, played by Jake Johnson, are quickly swept up in a
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would-be modern tale of adventure, horror, and intrigue. While this film isn't directly based
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on any one specific version of The Mummy, arguably to its detriment, the film attempts to fuse the
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best of the Stephen Summers mummy with the best of the MCU. The film chronicles Morton's unwitting
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revival of the purportedly evil entombed entity and his embodiment of an ages-old curse put upon
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him by the titular villain. Morton, a character with compromised morals to begin with, is tempted
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by the mummy to be a vessel for her abilities and desires. You have been selected as the vessel for
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the ultimate evil, and we are the only ones who can rectify that. The end product wants to be a
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modern-day adventure classic, but just kind of lands somewhere in an uncanny valley between
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genuinely boring and just straight-up copying elements from other films that were more successful
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The film also works really hard to signal to the audience that it's setting up the building blocks
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of a universe to come. Russell Crowe's Dr. Jekyll heads an organization dubbed Prodigium
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From the Latin, Monstrum Vell Prodigium. It acts as a spooky version of S.H.I.E.L.D.
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but the film takes all this so seriously. It just sucks the fun out of it. None of the world
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building ideas ever develop into anything substantial, leaving much of the film feeling
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like the cold vestiges of boardroom business decisions. The weirdest aspect of the movie is
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how it's so blatantly attempting to copy the MCU's trademark humor, and failing miserably
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Tom Cruise is the leading man. He's arguably the last true movie star. He's also not funny
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Sure, Les Grossman was great, but Tom Cruise is just not funny in this movie
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What are you thinking? I'm thinking we're probably going to die here
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And tragically, audiences agree. On its release, the film pulled in $32 million for a full theatrical
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haul of $410 million worldwide. This was a disappointment to Universal, but it was truly
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the critical reaction to The Mummy that sank the dark universe The film garnered a 15 on Rotten Tomatoes with audiences collectively seeming to say we see what you doing and we don like it It was even nominated for the worst picture for the Razzies that year alongside worst director and dual worst actor nominees for Tom Cruise
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and Russell Crowe. I'm offering you a partnership. You, evil incarnate. Me
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your good friend Eddie Hyde. So what happened? Why did the film end up being such a swing and a miss
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Well, one major contributing factor was revealed in a June 2017 Variety article
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Tom Cruise ostensibly took over the picture. According to insider sources who spoke with the writers
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Cruise joined the production just after Kurtzman was brought on board. But he was contractually guaranteed control of the picture
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He then set about micromanaging every aspect of the production. He brought two of his longtime collaborators in to rewrite the script
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and during the shooting of the film, would consistently lobby for less screen time for Sofia Boutella's mummy
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and more screen time for his character. He also was the driving force behind the fact that Nick Morton was cursed
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and ostensibly took over the role of the mummy at the end of the film. Cruise was brought in by Universal to give the project a cultural prestige value
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However, they made a deal with him that granted him control to the degree that probably wasn't wise in hindsight
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Multiple sources say that Cruise was seen telling Kurtzman what types of lenses to use on the camera and how to direct scenes
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To say nothing to the fact that he brought in his longtime editor to cut the finished product
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Supervising art director for the project, Frank Walsh, said, this is very much a film of two halves
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before Tom and after Tom. You don't have to be a psychologist to read between the lines there
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Stop. A sacrifice to stop. For the greater good. I'm not interested in that at all
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Since then, Kurtzman has since moved on and is very successfully running Paramount's
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entire Star Trek organization. However, when asked about The Mummy recently, he just said
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The Mummy wasn't what I wanted it to be. Needless to say, it's disastrous critical reception
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tepid box office numbers, and generally below average interest from potential fans
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sealed the fate of the Dark Universe. There were brief rumors about Channing Tatum
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taking the role of Van Helsing and The Rock being courted to play the Wolfman, but the reaction to The Mummy sealed the deal
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There weren't going to be any more films in the Dark Universe. It was dead
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No Bride of Frankenstein, no Invisible Man, no more Prodigium. It was just over
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Wow, that was intense. And that was that. Until Universal partnered with Blumhouse
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and made a fantastic standalone Invisible Man movie a few years later that has no connection to any shared universe
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But, you know, where there's a will, there's a way. But that's far from the last time we'll see the monsters
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Currently on the horizon, there's a Wolfman film purportedly starring Ryan Gosling
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proving that the universal monsters do one thing better than anyone else in the history of film
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Come back from the dead
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