Universal Monsters Cinematic Universe

It's not so much bad as odd, but it feels like an odd influence, you know?

Odd would be the right word, going over the film in question.

Tom Cruise becomes Satan? Why didn't we get that film?

The "Dark Universe" logo right at the start is gonna be real ackward when people ironically revisit this movie to make fun of it years down the line man.

But yeah, it sucked man.i mean, I mooched off one of my friends to see it and I still felt ripped off.

Edit: Now that I think of it what represented a bigger "the Titanic will not sink!!!" moment? This starting with the Dark Universe logo, or the Ghostbusters reboot starting with the "Ghost Corps" logo?

edited 9th Jun '17 3:57:03 PM by RoboZombie

Ghostbusters for sure.

For what it's worth, Rotten Tomatoes for 2017's The Mummy now sits at 18%.

But I mainly walked in here because someone just told me that they were planning Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Phantom of the Opera films. Which, well, this feels very... bizzare? I know they did monster mash-ups and all that, but my gut instinct has always been that a Universal monster series would be better served without immediately launching it as a universe.

I mean, the Universal monster brand still feels like something you could use to some effect, just... not if you immediately turn it into a gritty "Dark Universe" with shared continuity. But knowing straight up that in this film about, say, the Invisible Man, that Dracula is around and that the film is going to make constant nods reminding you of it, it feels off-putting? This isn't something I'd immediately turn into a franchise.

And then you put Notre-Dame in it! That's not even originally a monster movie! It feels tonally out of place, especially if you adapt it in any ways that are accurate to Hugo's novel. I know Universal did do both it and Phantom films back in the day, but it still feels off to me.

edited 9th Jun '17 5:11:03 PM by Lavaeolus

Oh fuck, it's even lower than Dracula Untold now? This is absolutely humiliating.

Predicting a repeat of Untold's box office performance. Bombing domestically but doing reasonably well internationally, leaving the franchise in limbo.

This is what you get for trying to start a Cinematic Universe before the first movie even airs. It happened with Green Lantern and Dracula Untold.

The template they are all trying to copy, the MCU, didn't even do this. Iron Man was completely stand alone aside from the post-credits scene. Nobody announced that it was the beginning of a new universe before it aired, because they didn't know it would be successful. And yet now it appears that Universal is so desperate to make a Universal Monsters universe that this is the second failed attempt to start it.

edited 9th Jun '17 7:43:51 PM by alliterator

Hell, Legendary did that with Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island. DC even did that with Man of Steel.

I do find it to be a pity since the interviews suggest they would not make that mistake. But then again, I did felt that casting Russel Crowe as Dr. Jekyll was quite a distracting choice.

If I had taken the reins of the movie though, I say give Sophia top-billing as she is the Mummy. And it's been a long time since a monster got top-billing.

I mean, this is basically the point of no return for their cinematic universe stuff. They were able to go "eh, never mind that" with Dracula Untold because it wasn't even part of this universe until relatively late in production, but here they're opening with their damn logo, they've got Russell Crowe signed up for a bunch more of these things, they've got Johnny Depp as the Invisible Man, a bunch of other casting.

My prediction is that this whole thing is gonna last like, 2 or 3 movies long unless somehow one of them becomes a massive hit and gives this whole shared universe effort a Heroic Second Wind.

I doubt they're gonna be able to pull that off.

edited 10th Jun '17 11:50:22 AM by RoboZombie

Well that was embarrassing. First Dracula Untold and now this new Mummy movie.

I had a feeling it was a mess when i watch the trailers since there was too much action, reveal a lot of the story and wasn't very scary. And the fact most reviewers complain the plot is an incoherent mess didn't help.

It was a good thing i didn't watch this. Wonder Woman is a better movie to watch.

Far better movie to watch.

After watching cinematic universes rise and fall, I am pretty tired of it by now. I mean, there should be other ways of establishing Shared Universe other than Sequel Hook.

I'm not exactly a huge fan of the concept in and of itself because the focus is more on creating a brand, a profitable franchise banking on a crowd-pleasing idea than making individually worthwhile and interesting films. Like it's nice that you have your little crossover but if all the movies leading up to it were mediocre, uninteresting and failed to get me invested in the characters and story, who cares?

Exactly. My favorite Shared Universe is DCEU, but it's more because of a potential than anything. Don't really care about Marvel anymore. I even lost interest in seeing Spider Man, for Pete's sake!

I really hoped that this universe would do great, since it is horror-themed and I liked horror themes. Well... Look at it now. Would it have been more interesting if they took some cues from Bloodborne?

Oh that definitely needs to happen! There is a super duper evil guy planning to destroy us all? Screw him, we are making our own movies!

edited 11th Jun '17 4:06:18 PM by kaalban

Interesting point I've seen is that most of these monsters are in the public domain. I would love to see someone use them to satirize cinematic universes, perhaps in an Animated Actors kind of way.

I would have liked if they were actual horror instead of just action with a horror background, because that would be something actually different from other shared universes, it would be more faithful to the original movies and Sommers already did the action version not too long ago, and better.

We still have the Robin Hood Cinematic Universe to look forward to!

It's a shame, really. Though, between reading our pages on the movie, and having time to gain some perspective, I'd say the part I paid the most attention to was Sofia Boutella as the Mummy. I liked her in Star Trek Beyond, and she played well in this one for what they gave her. She sold "Power hungry temptress who'll manipulate you to get what she wants" while also giving the impression she might actually deliver on the promises she makes. Damn. Good. Actress. And a waste to use her in a single movie.

I agree with the one who said she should have been made a good person who created more practical goals than just conquering everything.

This movie was so shit I felt compelled to review it

I had low expectations for this movie and it still managed to let me down.

Sounds like Tom Cruise was a major part of what went wrong behind the scenes.

Why am I not surprised . . .

They should have tied this to the others. Setting it in the present (The others were in the forties and fifties, I do believe) makes it totally a non-issue. Especially given what the third one did with Yetis and the First Emperor of China. I mean, if Egyptian mythology is real, it stands to reason other countries' myths could be too.

Until I read on here that they weren't related, I honestly thought this was trying to continue that series. I mean, they had the fucking BOOK OF THE DEAD cameo as a weapon in one scene, and they did the same face in the dust trick that at least two of the others pulled. That just screams a sequel or even modern reboot to me, not "this is totally unrelated to that other trilogy that totally did all this same stuff too."

Ouch.

Come on Brendan, you're not in a position talk. Your movies sucked.