Beginning with the release of The Mummy in 2017, Universal will reintroduce moviegoers to their lineup of classic movie monsters. Though news on the initiative has been relatively quiet as of late, recently the co-leaders of Universal's Monsters reboot initiative, Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan, offered an update and a bit more insight into the upcoming shared universe.
Speaking with Variety's Brent Lang, Kurtzman and Morgan discussed the Universal Monsters reboots, which could eventually pop into theaters at the same speed as Disney's Star Wars films. Following the debut of The Mummy (which is expected to start shooting next year with Kurtzman in the director's chair), the plan is to have a new Universal Monster film hit theaters each year.
Though the exact order of the post-Mummy films is not finalized, movies about the Wolf Man, Dracula, Van Helsing, and the Bride of Frankenstein seem to be high on Universal's to-do list. The respective titular characters in Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Phantom of the Opera are also expected to play a part in Universal's reimaginings.
Bringing these monsters to new life is Universal's sizable team of ten writers, each of whom is in charge of one character. Even if each monster doesn't get their own individual film, that doesn't necessarily mean they won't be getting screen time, as the shared universe will ensure meetings between the monsters in separate films, not unlike The Avengers framework carefully molded by Marvel over the years.
Classic horror fans, Kurtzman and Morgan have been re-watching Universal's monster movies to get a sense of what they can play around with in the reboots, and to also realize what shouldn't be changed. As Kurtzman told Variety, creating content on the border between reinvention and too much tampering can be a fine line to walk:
“We’re creating a mythology, so we’re looking at this canon and thinking, ‘What are the rules?’ What can we break and what are the ones that are untouchable?”
When The Mummy shambles into theaters on March 24th, 2017, we'll begin to see if the Universal Monsters reboot will succeed in pleasing fans of the original films and newcomers to the beloved franchises. Stay tuned to Daily Dead for more details, and visit Variety to read Lang's full article.
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
Daily Dead's Official Podcast! Daily Dead's Official Podcast!
