Universal Monsters Cinematic Universe Coming From Alex Kurtzman And Chris Morgan
It worked for Marvel and now Universal is hoping it works for their monsters. A new report says Universal Studios is in the early stages of creating “a substantial new production endeavor” which will “expand and unify” theUniversal Monstersproperties, including characters such asDracula,The Wolf Man,Frankenstein,The Invisible Man, andCreature from the Black Lagoon. The initial architects of this endeavor areAlex Kurtzman, ofTransformers, Star TrekandAmazing Spider-Man 2fame, andChris Morgan, who wrote the bulk of theFast and Furiousmovies. Potentially, this means all of the above characters would get their own movies before teaming up for anAvengers-type finale. Read more about this possible Universal Monsters Cinematic Universe below.
Deadlinebroke the news of the Universal Monsters Cinematic Universe. This whole thing is still in the very early stages but apparently Kurtzman and Morgan have begun to take meetings to find people who want to be a part of the initiative. The hope is the first film to kick this off will be a 2016 reboot ofThe Mummy, which hasgone throughafew directorsandis currently vacant. It’s also unclear if Kurtzman and Morgan will write some of these films, direct them, or whatever. But they’re spearheading the idea right now. They’ll also look at other films or properties who are using these characters and try to reel them in so it all fits under one umbrella.
According to Deadline, “this will be the first time that the studio has formalized an approach to these classic characters in a cohesive, connected way rather than as a series of stand-alone projects by disparate filmmaking teams.” However, it’s something Kurtzman and his former partner Roberto Orci (currently working onStar Trek 3) have been teasing for some time. Late last year, Orci – who, again, is no longer involved –said the following:
There’s an interesting thing that could happen at Universal where they have this amazing library of their old monsters and these kinds of heroes, and the idea of trying to create a universe. [We’re doing] Van Helsing, and we’re also producing The Mummy for them. We’re kind of imagining updating these kinds of things. You don’t want to just make remakes when you’re doing a thing, unless it’s worthy of being a remake, but when you have an idea for something that can actually be made different and yet be true to what it was. We just had a notion of how to make it modern and have a slightly different tone. It’s not going to be just a remake.
On paper, you understand this idea and it makes for some really exciting potential crossovers. Plus, the monsters are one of Universal’s huge brands that rarely gets the love it deserves. But these properties are so special, it’s going to take some real care to pull off this massive proposition. For example,The Monster Squaddid a good job of it unofficially, but that’s not necessarily the tone you’d imagine Universal will go for this initiative. Universal’s also done crossovers like this multiple times in the past:Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, etc. Plus the Abbott and Costello movies, there are tons. They’ve just never all been connected or had an effect on one another.
This also put into question the future of theSpider-Manfranchise. While Orcirecently announcedhe’d left that franchise, we assumed Kurtzman was still involved. We don’t know that he’s not, but shepherding multiple franchises at multiple studios doesn’t seem like something everyone would be cool with. To be fair though, both were involved with Universal long beforeAmazing Spider-Man 2"bombed."
What are your thoughts on this? Are Kurtzman and Morgan the right guys? Who would make for the best crossover?
