Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I am absolutely fascinated by Universal's big gamble on relaunching their classic monsters as a giant tentpole franchise. On the surface it sounded like a horrible idea that only conjured images of Van Helsing-level action schlock, but then they started attracting legitimate A-listers to star in these things and that leads me to believe there's something of virtue there.
Tom Cruise has filmed his starring role in The Mummy (not playing the mummy, sadly). Russell Crowe is playing Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde (with a first appearance in The Mummy and then his own film), Johnny Depp is supposed to be The Invisible Man and now Variety is reporting that Javier Bardem is in heavy negotiations to play Frankenstein's Monster. Not Dr. Frankenstein, mind you, but the actual monster that Boris Karloff originated so iconically.
Kurtzman and Orci are spearheading this shared universe, which isn't the most reassuring news, but I'm curious to see what Kurtzman does with his sophomore outing as director on The Mummy. He'll be working from a Jon Spaihts script and has one of our best movie stars in the lead, so it really should be his movie to mess up.
We'll see what behind-the-camera talent is attracted to these other Universal Monster standalones. That'll be key, I think, to this potential shared universe franchise sinking or swimming.
As of right now, the thought of Bardem as Frankenstein's Monster is an exciting one and Russell Crowe as Jekyll/Hyde is kind of inspired. This odd-ball experiment is fascinating.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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