Thread by @NatBrehmer

What happened with Dark Universe is so fascinating to me because we've never seen anything like it. This wasn't even the first attempt. Far from! Universal kept making monster reboots that were meant to start something. None of them ever did. Let's go over the history (thread)

https://twitter.com/darkuniverse/status/866706548923314176

VAN HELSING is an obvious place to start because it was a blockbuster monster mash of Universal Monster icons. In a "cinematic universe" world, it would now probably the movie that other movies build toward. Famously, it didn't do great.

Given the massive success of THE MUMMY from the same director, Universal had expected VAN HELSING to be a surefire hit. They planned a sequel bringing in more monsters, theme park attractions, and a TV series TRANSYLVANIA to launch in the fall after the movie's release.

After the VAN HELSING universe was scrapped, Universal embraced the remake trend of the '00s and decided on (at least comparatively) more straightforward updates of their classics. Starting with THE WOLFMAN, which was famously troubled LONG before it ever hit the screen.

With a bloated budget, several release date changes, a director quitting and another coming in, last second rewrites, but adhering to a shooting schedule already in place, THE WOLFMAN kind of had its fate etched on its palm before it ever even hit theaters.

While not meant to kick off a universe, per se, WOLFMAN was meant to be the first of a bunch of lavish monster remakes. While it was in production, Universal was developing CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON with Breck Eisner, and had begun talking with Del Toro about FRANKENSTEIN.

Neither of those movies happened. OK, so they kept overdoing it with movies and decided to do something small for TV. In 2013, Universal put together a DRACULA limited series for NBC. Just a nice little thing, impossible to overdo. You'd think.

Early interest was so strong that all of a sudden "limited series" became "season 1" and not only that, they planned on following it with a WOLFMAN series, too. Only lack of viewership and star troubles led a miniseries to become another canceled one season show w/ a cliffhanger.

So a TV monsterverse didn't work. But in 2014 the MCU was everything. This was it! DRACULA UNTOLD was explicitly meant to be the start of a monster universe. In fact, it underwent reshoots just to be that, to throw in references to other monsters and tease the promising future.

This is when things started to stick out like a sore thumb. After it came out, they said "Just kidding!" that wasn't really the start of our shared universe. The next movie, THE MUMMY will be the REAL start of our shared universe.

With that being the second time they had said this in three years, they needed to show that they were REALLY super serious this time, and may have overcompensated just a bit, revealing an official name and logo, announcing the stars of each film before even the first had come out

We had Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll, Javier Bardem as the Frankenstein Monster, Tom Cruise as Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp as the Invisible Man and Sofia Boutella as The Mummy, plus Angelina Jolie doing BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN with Bill Condon. HUGE Hollywood names, it must be stressed.

A-list stars took to the Dark Universe like a space religion whose leader's wife hasn't been seen in public in 16 years, but when THE MUMMY, once again, did not do wonders critically or financially, the Dark Universe was pretty literally dead on arrival.

Finally, there was a silver lining. After THE MUMMY, we got Leigh Whannell's fantastic THE INVISIBLE MAN. No universe. No big picture. No blockbuster budget. Just a movie. But then, when it was successful and people really liked it, they just had to do what they do...

Clearly the attempt to go loosey goosey with just a cool INVISIBLE MAN was out the window. Suddenly, it was gonna be the first of a BUNCH of cool, one-off monster flicks. A slate! Karyn Kusama's DRACULA! Ryan Gosling as THE WOLFMAN! We're not overdoing it, we're playing it cool!

And so for 20 years they've had attempts to Start a Thing with every new take on the Universal Monsters, getting ahead of themselves every single time, this vicious cycle that is wild to witness as each thing has carried its own scrapped slate with it. And yet I'll always show up

10K likes (Thank you!) and I can't resist a plug. No soundcloud but I do have a dirt cheap slasher anthology about a witty, gleefully evil killer named Julie, meant to evoke the feeling of first catching glimpses of a horror franchise on late night cable. amazon.com/Slices-Julie-N…

Or, if you want me to take you on another journey of the ups and downs of a franchise (on a much smaller scale) here's my book on the PUPPET MASTER films. Amazingly, it ALSO involves some unmade movies featuring the classic monsters. amazon.com/Puppet-Master-…