Universal Horror shared Universe (2017-soon)

They tried to start this shit off with Dracula Untold in 2014, but it turned out so bad that the studio basically disowned it. Now they've got the writers of The Transformers and Star Trek memberberries producing a planned series of at least six pictures, with The Mummy coming out this summer, starring Tom Cruise as the mummy fighter and Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll.

Can this succeed as a studio property when most of the characters are public domain?

Can you make a successful "shared Universe" today when the most famous characters are villains? Will they turn some villains into heroes, like what insane Sony execs are trying to do with Venom?

Will the producers be able to read the scripts? They have a hard time reading fiction.

https://youtu.be/rz28DKhemLg?t=12s

memberberries?

apparently its from an episode of south park.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndI9vkgw_1Y

and now an internet meme with t-shirts.

Does the general audience even know that Universal was known for its monster movies at one point? do they know that CHiPs was a TV show?

Will China accept vampire killing when they don't accept ghost busting?

the mummy movies do huge business in asia and worldwide.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=mummy.htm

Can this succeed as a studio property when most of the characters are public domain?

no

Did they announce who they've cast as Abbott and Costello?

I'm waiting for the shared Ed Wood universe films

finally, plan 10 from outer space

Bob & Carol & Glen & Glenda

Ex-Wife of the Monster

I was going to go with Father of the Bride of the Monster but now I just feel redundant.

Did they announce who they've cast as Abbott and Costello?

i'm sure Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill are set

Jonah Hill replaced by Kenan Thompson after #MonstersSoWhite controversy

perhaps you have not considered the vintage Universal #ScaredBlackGuys meme.

Orci admitting he doesn't like fiction is incredible.

I can't think of anyone I'd rather give money to than an artist who's not that into their chosen medium.

"Sculptures are kind of stupid and pointless, but you should totally buy mine."

no he's going to tell the REAL story of the Mummy, not the fictionalized one

See...the action and the adventure of transporting a sarcophagus to a museum!

Who's Orci?

Who ISN'T Orci?

Oh it's the producer

He's also one of the screenwriters behind a number of recent incoherent movies.

the trailer for the nu-mummy makes it look like a netflix movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzorZUuZqEI

bad effects. the use of paint it black makes me think of some 1992 movie for some reason.

i liked the fraser/rock mummies. cheesy in a fun way. you know, old-fashioned.

Shame this won't be good, because Sofia Boutella looks really cool in it, but just seen her in the trailer for Atomic Blonde.

*eyes 'posts very much in character' thread*

Tiger Raid also looks better than Kingsman, Star Trek Beyond and this.

I don't think universal have really done anything Creature From The Black Lagoon since the original film series. Can't imagine Invisible Man getting his own film, he never really seemed like part of the gang.

Lol at the discovery happening via explosive terror attack - in Egypt? Who? - where the terrorists then just wander off afterwards. That must be one shitty script.

Hunchback remake definitely not happening.

someone should invent some new cool monsters. frankenstein and all that so tired by now. had no interest in seeing that cgi frankenstein one with whatshisface in it a few years back.

can't remember anything about roger corman's frankenstein...

oh, wait, now i remember.

https://schlockwave.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/dr-frankmonster.jpeg

Never seen that one. I know it's based on a Brian Aldiss book.

I get so excited when I hear about a new Frankenstein movie. There seems to be this bottomless well of potential, with each new iteration somehow finding a fresh and exciting angle that makes us all rethink what we thought we knew about Frankenstein. It's almost as if the character itself is himself Prometheus, perpetually weaving new stories and ideas and dreams never before imagined. I can't think of any aspect of our culture that wouldn't be vastly improved by somehow incorporating Frankenstein.

What was the doctor called again? The one who made Frankenstein? Who cares, really. Frankenstein is the only one who matters, really.

Frankenstein.

phil hartman and peter boyle kinda the only franks i need.

if it wasn't for regular frankenstein remakes we wouldn't have experienced the wonder of ripped branagh

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2e/d0/b0/2ed0b03b046dab016bae81b88e7282ec.jpg

I can't think of any aspect of our culture that wouldn't be vastly improved by somehow incorporating Frankenstein.

he did wonders for cereal

Frankenstein's Daughter, guys:

https://huntercamp.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/84f0e-frankensteinsdaughter2b2528332529.jpg

(Which is terrible but actually also great but obviously mostly terrible.)

I watched that James McAvoy/Harry Potter "Victor Frankenstein" movie and it was godawful.

If you want different angles maybe Mammoth Book Of Frankenstein? Agonizing Resurrection Of Frankenstein by Ligotti and the Aldiss book.

The Bride is another non-universal film but it's not very good.

It has Sting in it.

I wish every year's Academy Awards had a Best Actor/Actress Portraying a Frankenstein category so I didn't have to try to figure out for myself who was the best Frankenstein of a given year.

"You're all winners! Get up here, you Frankensteins!"

now i miss phil hartman. :(

“You know, there is one place that all the people with the greatest potential are gathered and that’s the graveyard,” a teary-eyed Davis began. “People ask me all the time — what kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola? And I say exhume those bodies. Exhume those stories — the stories of the people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition, people who fell in love and lost.”

Last night I briefly saw this thing on TV where one of the voice actors in the new Smurfs movie was talking about finding the motivation of the Smurf he was voicing. I guess like trying to figure out why the Smurf likes farts and dancing to Meghan Trainor songs over the closing credits of computer animated movies. I dunno, I think the motivations of a Frankenstein actor are probably similarly complex and nuanced.

What do my neck bolts mean? How do these enormous shoes inform my personality? What secret longings am I trying to express when I say 'raaarr' and clumsily swipe my arms at things?

Does little girl float like flower?

Recently learned this bit of trivia: when Bela Lugosi turned downed the Frankenstein's Monster role it was a completely different and inferior script that barely resembled the finished film.

frankenstein is dumb. and so not scary. everyone just goes well here comes frankenstein again. how frightening.

His monster is kind of scary.

oh god i just remembered aaron eckhart's badass frankenstein in i, frankenstein

3% fresh on rotten tomatoes, which seems v generous

they should make a movie about a mad guy who wants to keep his circus going so he makes a little person frankenstein and its tom cruise. then tom cruise could be in the hall of fame for playing a tiny vampire and a tiny frankenstein and a tiny mummy killer.

Also Universal sometimes planted people to run out screaming. Wonder how many stories of audience responses to old horror films were really just people being payed to act scared or appalled.

crisis actors

the true horror is real life do u see

i did that when i saw V.I. Warshawski at the movies, but nobody paid me.

I thought "I, Frankenstein" was universal but it's not.

barely global tbh

I think SNK said they wanted .couka shared film universe but I don't see that ever happening. Apparently lots of companies are aiming for something like that. Hope it's a fad, please please be a fad.

".couka"? I meant "a".

shared universe probably just means Van Helsing shows up in all the movies or something

people keep talking about that stuff that went down in Egypt

Hunchback remake definitely not happening.

― Robert Adam Gilmour,

From Universal, probably not, but I wouldn't but it past Disney, who have twelve remakes in the works.

if this doesn't lead to a Monster Squad reboot then they will have blown it.

not really interested tbh. there are so many great classic monster movies to see why even waste your time? i don't need to see a CGI Dracula.

this is why i watch so much t.v.

Adam Bruneau- I don't want any of these new universal series either but I don't agree that there's that many classic monster films, at least in this mode. Bride Of Frankenstein is the best of the Universal set but it goes in a completely different direction, it's more like an old Disney film with horror imagery.

Ed Solomon is doing Invisible Man so that might be a comedy.

What if in the new mummy movie they unwrap the mummy at the end and it turns out he's a dracula under the bandages, and then they chase the dracula through his own movie and kill him and then someone turns his dead body into a Frankenstein, and then at the end of the Frankenstein movie his back gets broken so now he's a hunchback, then the hunchback drinks a potion and turns into a jeckle. Would this work do you think.

What if there were no monsters? Just a thought.

Would this work do you think.

Maybe if the jeckle got sent to live in a black lagoon, then got so covered in weed and stuff that everyone thinks he's a mummy.

These are beautiful ideas, I will pitch them.

You could make the no-monsters monster movie just by putting invisible sauce on them like what invisible man did to himself. They could be standing in plain sight and people are running around saying, 'wheres that dracula, wheres that wolfman,' and the only way they'd ever even know there were monsters at all is if they listen for them laughing under their breaths.

Would wolfman's hairs turn visible when he moults? That could be a plot point.

Hmm, yes, you always have to consider little details like that. I anticipate at least a couple of scenes where people can't tell the difference between a mummy and a wrapped-up invisible man, as well. Particularly after the mummy has made himself invisible under his bandages. It will lead to philosophical thoughts of, well, what is the difference between a man and a mummy when you take off their wrappings and they're both invisible?

What if there were no monsters? Just a thought.

― duped and used by my worst Miss U (President Keyes), Wednesday, April 5, 2017 1:18 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in the final credits, Cruise realizes the monster was him all along.

Or maybe they could name the mummy Miscavige.

the thing I hate about these movies is that the supernatural leads are near-invincible so they're almost always defeated in lame ways

"OH NO YOU SAID THE MAGIC PHRASE ON THE BOTTOM OF THE CAMPBELL'S SOUP LABEL, MY POWERS ARE DRAINING!"

A Dracula falls asleep under a tree in 1869, he wakes up in 2019 and decides to run for President. And get this, his opponent is Van Helsing, who drives a stake through his heart during a debate. The rest of the monsters appear as pundits.

I don't agree that there's that many classic monster films, at least in this mode

what is "this mode"? no idea if Universal horror movies are considered to have a certain style. but there are many classic films, from the originals with Chaney & Lugosi, the iconic Frankenstein monster, etc. and the later era spin offs are even worth seeing (i saw Abbot & Costello recently, it was a riot). then you have 50s/60s Christopher Lee-Peter Cushing era monsters and gothic romance versions of Dracula, which continued into the 70s with many of the same actors and sets but in a post-Manson Family post-Rosemary's Baby world, when it kind of became more about murder cults.

is Hammer Horror really different than Universal i have no idea

What is the proper collective noun for multiple draculas?

more boobs...

x-post

draculae

Adam- Worth seeing yes, but not many great films. And I say this as someone who's really really into all this stuff. Still some gaps to fill in like House Of Wax, Spanish Dracula, Tower Of London (Karloff version). I don't want to be exhaustive though, because there's a lot that nobody seems to like.

I would consider Hammer similar enough in their monster films.

xp, no, is it like, "A gaggle of draculas?" A pride? A herd?

An exsanguination of draculas, iirc.

(i saw Abbot & Costello recently, it was a riot)

There are at least six(?) Abbott & Costello Meet a Horrific Beast that Unaccountably Fails to Murder Them movies.

a mouthful of draculas

Collective noun
'Coven' has been used as a collective noun for vampires, possibly based on the Wiccan usage. An alternative collective noun is a 'house' of vampires.(128) David Malki, author of Wondermark, suggests in Wondermark No. 566 the use of the collective noun 'basement', as in "A basement of vampires."(129)

Wiccan usage, like those loons could even spell their own names

just reading up on this because I was finally subjected to the mummy trailer. these movies are going to be a money bonfire.

Let's all laugh at the Universal Dark Universe

i'm sure Frankenstein is going to be a superspeedy brute force killing machine that says monosyllabic one-liners

http://www.vulture.com/2017/11/universal-has-reportedly-given-up-on-its-monsterverse.html

You know what would be a really good idea? Rebooting the Universal Monsterverse! Think about it: Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf-man, Bride of Frankenstein, Mummy, Invisible Man ... they're monsters! It writes itself.

Friends forever

https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/dark-universe-cast-may-2017_universal.jpg

What a hunk of high profile pop culture detritus that photo is.

really regretting my decision to watch the tom cruise mummy twice in the last three weeks now

would you rather watch some behind-the-scenes video of that photo shoot or eat a roll of tinfoil?

Noooooooo, now I will never see Stephen Dorff's Creature from the Black Lagoon team up with Kevin Corrigan's Dracula to battle Tom Sizemore's Igor!

Bizarro- why twice?

surely the live action Looney Tunes cinematic universe must be due soon

X-Men: First Class scribes Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz are going a little looney, and directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa may soon join them.

The power writing duo has been hired to write the untitled Acme movie project being developed by Warner Bros. At the same time, Ficarra and Requa, who directed Crazy Stupid Love for the studio, are in early negotiations to direct the project, which has its roots in Warners' classic Looney Tunes cartoons.

Steve Carell, who toplined Crazy Stupid Love, is attached to star in the project, which is being produced by Dan Lin and Roy Lee. The latter two were behind the mega-successful and franchise-launching The Lego Movie, and the studio and producers are envisioning the Acme project as an event movie that will also launch a franchise.

Plot details are being kept under an anvil, but the Acme Corporation is a fictional manufacturer of crazy and sometimes dangerous products (that also tend to malfunction at the most inopportune times) that are used by many a Looney Tunes character. The company's products are most commonly used by Wile E. Coyote in his never-ending quest to capture the Road Runner.

The movie, however, would not center on the Looney Tunes characters and is being planned as a CG/live-action hybrid.

from 3 years ago though :(

I finally saw Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and it was awesome.

There's an awful 90s video film that seems like the writers went on strike and the bosses had to write it themselves. Some of the worst garbage I've seen from a major company, like shockingly amateurish.

Space Jam was rad.

they should just remake that. it even has ironic/magic Bill Murray.

Bizarro- why twice?

first time was on a plane with a limited selection of movies i han't already seen, second time was with my wife who refused to believe my reporting of how shitty and tin-eared the introduction of tom cruise's character is - once we started watching she wanted to see how much worse it could get so i ended up sitting through the whole thing again

have we talked about cruise's intro itt? he and jake johnson are allegedly-charming special forces rogues who steal antiquities from the middle east. we meet them fighting isis for control of a site of historical and archaelogical importance. they get in over their heads and are only saved by calling in an airstrike which... atomises the site of historical and archaelogical importance

tfw when you aim to write a lovable han solo character and end up overshooting the mark and have him help isis achieve their goals instead :(

Gritty reboot of isis in syrian civil war universe