The plague of cinematic universes: Universal
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Take a shot for every ‘Universe’. Turns out the synonyms run dry very quickly.
Of all the cataclysmic cinematic continuity failures, none has been funnier than the recent collapse of Universal studio’s Dark Universe. This was an endeavour so blatantly ushered by cynicism and greed that the experience of watching it instantly implode at a grand total of one film was a delicious dollop of schadenfreude to lighten up my mid-year.
As the owners of the original cinematic universe in the 50s, life as a Universal executive in 2012 must have seemed pretty good. You’ve just watched The Avengers earn all the dollars at the box office and you have all the ingredients to resurrect your monster franchise that raised such success in decades gone by. All you need is a big name that doesn’t end in Downey Jr and a smash hit with your first property. Enter Luke Evans and the 16th Dracula film that week.
After the release of Dracula Untold in 2014 and the subsequent worldwide shrug, Universal benched their plan in preparation for a 2017 resurrection with the worlds hottest dead-eyed lunatic, Tom Cruise, helming the foray.
Universal went all in on this. Photos emerged of their monster-avengers team. Javier Bardem, Johnny Depp and Russel Crowe filled out the all-star cast. Graham Norton was directed to feed lines to Cruise for rehearsed responses detailing the huge plans they had laid out. They even hilariously designed a logo for their ‘Dark Universe’ to run before the Mummy reboot that would kick the whole endeavour off.
As the one person in this hemisphere who saw The Mummy, the whole 2nd act is bogged down in sloppy ‘world-building’ with Crowe’s Dr Jekyll (acting as a surrogate Nick Fury) desperately teasing characters we’ve seen in cinematic form a million times. Quite distinct from fan excitement at finally seeing Captain Marvel or Rocket Raccoon in motion is the prospect of watching Frankenstein again: Frankenstein harder. Having said that, Johnny Depp for the invisible man is perfect casting- I just wish it was for the Fantastic Beasts sequel.
As of now, the second film in the franchise, Bride of Frankenstein has been removed from Universal’s release schedule and the Universe is on indefinite hiatus. Please Universal, if you’re listening- take a page out of the Ancient Egyptian’s Necronomicon and bury it. Preferably under 5 million tonnes of limestone.
For our autopsy on Sony click here.