Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. We've known for a while that Universal was planning on establishing a shared universe for their movie monsters. Going back to Luke Evans' Dracula Untold, actually, but it seems like they've decided to reset and begin their shared universe with The Mummy.
Today they announced the official name for this, calling it their Dark Universe. Along with that announcement they also dropped some big bits of news, primarily confirming that Johnny Depp will be playing The Invisible Man and Javier Bardem will be Frankenstein's Monster.
They also confirmed that Bill Condon will direct the next Dark Universe movie, a remake of Bride of Frankenstein which will star Bardem and an as yet unannounced female star as the title character. They have cheekily set the release date for Bride of Frankenstein on Valentine's Day 2019.
Who will be the actress playing the Bride? It seems like they're really going out of their way to cast big name talent in these monster roles, so think of the top actresses working and you can bet they've been considered. Charlize Theron and Jennifer Lawrence jump to mind. We'll find out soon as the press release promised an announcement in the very near future.
Finally, here's a neat "Legacy Sizzle Reel" that the studio put together. They screened this at CinemaCon and it was cinephile crack to me, but also oddly underlined how different the priorities have been for these new films. No more slow, creeping gothic horror. Now it's a CGI actionfest with huge stunts every 10 minutes and a breakneck pace. At least that's what The Mummy appears to be. Perhaps Condon's film will be more along the lines of James Whale's original. Lord knows he understands Whale as a filmmaker better than just about any other living director...
If nothing else, these Dark Universe films will be big, goofy A-list spectacles. It might not be my ideal readaptation of these classic monster tales, but if they let us have some fun with these flicks then I won't complain. Too much.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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