Universal Monsters Cinematic Universe

Report: Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan have left the Dark Universe to pursue other projects. Ergo, the fledgling universe is unsurprisingly in hot water.

I think Universal would have benefited more if they used new monsters that have not have adaptation love or monsters based on legends, myths, or just completely new monsters altogether. Abominable Snowman movie anyone...?

edited 8th Nov '17 12:55:03 PM by 123tbones

I thought there already was an abominable snowman movie.

But yeah, classic horror relies on at least some kind of mystery regarding the monster's origin, nature, and behavior, and that's kinda hard to pull off when they keep revisiting the same source material.

The chief difference between the actual horror greats and any random B-movie is that the former focus on building the legend, the mythos surrounding the monster. A corpse brought to life isn't scary. A corpse brought to life - and hence defying the natural order of things, becoming an unholy abomination against the ways of science and divinity alike, a walking testament of chaotic forces beyond mortal ken - now that is scary.

You missed an opportunity to reference The Snowman.

I think the main problem is not the names or properties they picked, but that they wanted it to be some sort of Superhero universe, not understanding that the audience isn't supposed to root for the monsters, it is supposed to be afraid of them (and sometimes feel for them despite their fears). Monster movies don't really have heroes.

This could have worked if they had started with a "the monsters of the old were shut away for so long but now they are back and how does the world react to it" angle. But they went for something along the line of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Well, going the standard horror movie route wouldn't work. For one thing, how well known the characters are, as well as the inherent silliness of a Monster Mash teamup, makes it a little hard to treat them as genuinely horrifying. For another, horror movies don't really make the huge box office grosses that Universal is likely looking for. Even It, the highest grossing horror movie in decades, is still far, far short of delivering Avengers numbers.

However, if you look back at the classic Universal horror movies, they tended to lean as much into the adventure side of things as the horror side (The Phantom of the Opera actually goes full masked-villain-traps-the-heroes-in-a-slow-moving-death-trap route), and many of their monsters were made quite sympathetic. There's plenty to work with there to create action/adventure movies with the monsters as protagonists.

Universal's mistake, ultimately, was making a huge deal in the press about the start of their Dark Universe before they actually had a good movie under their belt. When Iron Man came out, there was little to no buzz about other Marvel projects that would tie back into it, and the movie itself didn't hint at anything like that until the post-credits teaser. So when the movie was successful and well-liked, Marvel could tell people about these other movies they have coming up that will tie in to Iron Man, and that made people more interested in those movies (or at least it did once The Avengers came out and people actually saw the heroes onscreen together; the non-Iron Man Phase 1 movies all only did so-so). But if you make a big deal about your shared cinematic universe before anyone's even seen frame one of movie one, and the movie turns out to be a dud, then that stink is going to carry over into anything else you try to make for the universe. What's more, if trailers and reviews have left some people on the fence about whether to see a movie or not, the knowledge that it's trying to launch a new cinematic universe can actually turn them away from it, since that makes it seem like more of a commitment.

I think that comment nailed it. They are trying to do superhero movies with these characters and that just doesn’t work. There’s a healthy market for horror movies, lots of horror movies have been incredibly successful lately, like It Follows, The Conjuring and especially It (2017) that broke box office records. But, ok, let’s say that as some tropers pointed out, that these characters are truly impossible to place in a horror setting because they are too well known. There are still some options like doing an adventure movie; check Peter Jackson’s King Kong is a good example, or Stephen Sommers’ Mummy with Brendan Fraser, or the Hellboy movies. But again, not an action flick or a superhero film, that doesn’t work.

Or if they really can’t think in a serious way to make these movies monster movies (whether horror or adventure) then go straight to comedy, just not stupid Shallow Parody like the crap that Seltzer and Friedberg do, I’m thinking more in subtle intelligent humor like with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

Yet I do think this material still can be converted in horror, or at least in something surreal and interesting to watch like Pan's Labyrinth. Just requires the right vision and not the director of Twilight or Fast and the Furious involved.

About Cruise’s guilty in the matter. Well I’ve heard several versions like that he’s just the scape goat and that Universal is placing all the blame on him, which is easy given his reputation. Other sources seems to contradict this. I wouldn’t take the blame off Universal so easily, but we have to admit that due to Cruise’s well known gigantic ego the rumors about his involvement have a lot of credibility too.

In any case, Kurtzman and Morgan exit are just more bad news for the Dark Universe.

Another thing is –pointing to the Elephant in the Room—audiences may already be suffering from rehash/remake/sequel fatigue. That’s something that several analysts are already writing about. Is not just The Mummy, the TMNT second movie bombed, the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers movies underperformed, Blade Runner was a bomb, to name only a few. Audiences are staying away from cinematic universes more and more. I read that some Hollywood insiders explain that studio executives are realizing this and several sequels planned for the future (like Pitch Perfect 3) were already cancelled or put on hold, and the whole reboot/remake/sequel is been reviewed. Foreign markets, particularly China, are saving some of these movies from been total flops but as many experts point out, that’s not going to last forever. Only like 30 foreign movies are allowed yearly in China so they are not as jaded on remakes and sequels, but they will be at some point.

I think Marvel find the gold mine and exploited as much as they could, the rest of studios just got late. If DC manage to do a good Justice League movie they may take some of the gold before it crashes, but the current trend is about to implode.

edited 9th Nov '17 10:04:12 PM by Luppercus

I don't think the Blade Runner sequel bombing is the best example to bring up. The original didn't make much money originally and took time to build its reputation as one of Scott's best films and a sci-fi cyberpunk masterpiece. A lot of younger people have likely never seen it. It's not an example of fatigue, more like there wasn't a big enough audience for it.

Honestly I've been over the concept of the shared universe for a while now. The focus is always moreso on creating a bunch of movies that tie into each other as a profit center, as opposed to making good individual films that succeed of their own merits. It's really presumptuous. In addition having a cinematic universe can put a bunch of unnecessary constraints as well depending on how much control the higher-ups wants, like how a lot of Marvel films feel like their creators' visions are watered down to make the films more homogenous, which is completely against my own preference for strong, auteur-driven creative movies.

edited 9th Nov '17 10:17:47 PM by Draghinazzo

In what way are Hellboy and the Stephen Sommers Mummy movie not action flicks? (Haven't seen the Peter Jackson King Kong, so can't speak for it.)

I guess it depends on your definition of action film, but their tone is obviously different that Cruise's vehicles. The Mummy looks more like Mission: Impossible than like Sommers' Mummy and that's saying something. The Mummy (1999) is more like Indiana Jones, same with King Kong. So where is exactly the line, well that would be very long to explain and very subjective. But clearly audiences in general did know the difference (even if is instinctive) as Summers’ movie made $450 million on a $80 million budget, while Kurtzman mummy did $409 million on a $195 million budget… I mean, even without adjustment to inflation Summer’s movie made more money.

Of course it could be that Kurtzman movie is just a bad movie and an mummy-related action flick of good quality could have made the trick, but I still think is primarily an issue of tonality.

Bladerunner is a special case....I didn't see the sequel either, nor did I ever consider to do so because I never saw the original. I know it is important, but for one, I always thought that it is mostly important for stylistic reasons and not because the story is so damned good and two, I frankly had no idea which one of the various cuts I should watch. It not exactly being a movie which happened to be shown on TV from time to time also ensured that I never watched. So what exactly should I watch a movie without seeing the original? And I think a lot of people felt the same way I did.

I also don't think that it is really a matter of people being tired of sequels or franchises....this is a matter of quality. People are more careful what they spend their money on and I think that there are three factors which make the decision:

1. The Marketing 2. The Reviews 3. The theatre effect - meaning "is it a movie which is worth spending the extra money on".

For example a movie like The Nice Guys got good reviews, but the marketing wasn't that great and the timing not the best and it didn't really look like a movie which looses a lot on the small screen. A movie like the Mummy failed in all three. A movie like Transformers might have the theatre effect, but we all know that those movies aren't good by any means. The MCU movies have usually a good marketing, great reviews helped along by the Marvel studio reputation and the theatre effect.

The first mistake Universal made was actually announcing that they planned an universe. They should have focussed on one great movie first.

Well it seems that if the project keeps going (and there's a big if) they're offering Jason Blum to take over Kurtzman and Morgan. Considering that he's known as a horror director/producer it's a step in the right direction no doubt. Maybe they do are listening the fanbase after all.

edited 10th Nov '17 8:34:04 AM by Luppercus

That’s good; I didn’t want to see the idea go to waste I thought it could be done right.

Pre-production on Bill Condon’s Bride of Frankenstein will resume.

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Ehhh, I have as much of a bad feeling about this as you probably do, but don't you think that's a bit drastic for a response?

Don't link without context

Yeah, it's against site rules. Particularly if the link is to graphic content like that. Kids could be reading.

Especially when said link goes to a picture of a teary-eyed Piglet holding a shotgun and an unseen voice is urging him to pull the trigger.

So, yeah. Inappropes.

As if the shared universe wasn’t dead enough already, the Mummy has 8 Razzie Award nominations, one shy of Transformers The Last Night.

“mother!” has three nominations including worst actress.

edited 22nd Jan '18 9:02:49 AM by Beatman1

Now that I saw Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water which is basically a re-imagining of Creature from the Black Lagoon and is a new hit with several Oscar nominations it just re-inforces my believe in WTF is wrong with you, Universal, how hard is to do this right?

Just pay the guy a check and tell him to make a movie about a Universal monster, do the same with Peter Jackson, Tim Burton and Andrés Muschietti and wait.

DARK Universe not dead?

Night of the Living Dead Dark Universe.

So what's next? Another horror movie themed shared universe that features slasher movie villains like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees? What would they call that universe? The Slasher Cinematic Universe?