PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Some time has passed since the official cancellation of Universal’s Dark Universe, a movie series that would have starred Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp and Russell Crowe. However, elements of that franchise was either cancelled or repurposed for other movies by other creators. Many of these horror movies have been scattered off into different canons and studios.
However, there is a way to make a horror-fueled dark universe that could potentially rival that of The Avengers. It might seem like a long shot, but it might be worth giving studios that secret sauce to make billions in profits.
First and foremost, filmmakers need to take their time with introducing characters. Take the movie Dracula Untold with Luke Evans in the starring role, for example. It took the entire movie to introduce Dracula, with the duration of the film not focusing on trying to set up future sequels or offshoots, instead dovetailing a narrative based around one movie monster and not trying to stuff in info about a conglomeration of them.
The 2017 movie, The Mummy, with Tom Cruise attempted to introduce a mummy movie while also jamming Russell Crowe’s Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde in there, making it less authentic and more about world-building. Had it focused on the mummy story, the movie might have been received better. Or maybe not, as it was still mostly panned by critics.
Studios have to introduce each monster one at a time to make the audience want to see more of the character before getting all of the separate entities together for a huge final boss battle. Otherwise, they’ll be going too fast and tripping over themselves trying to stuff as much background and tension in as possible before they could even get anywhere. But that’s just an idea.
What do you think? Could Universal’s Dark Universe work today?
