During the golden age of Hollywood, Universal's monster franchises dominated the box office. Although these franchises remain iconic, from
Dracula to
Frankenstein to
The Invisible Man, they are no longer the box office gold that they once were. Universal Studios looks to change that, as they have hired Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan to oversee an upcoming reboot of all their Unviersal Monsters properties. Harkening back to classic monster crossovers such as
House of Dracula and
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, each newly rebooted franchise will take place in an interconnected cinematic universe, with each film placed in a modern day setting.
In a recent exclusive,
Variety learned that Universal is planning on releasing at least one film set in the Universal Monsters Cinematic Universe annually, which will begin in 2017 with
The Mummy. Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan, who are set to oversee the cinematic universe, spoke of how they are currently approaching the franchise. According to Kurtzman,
"This is not a heightened world. We're exploring issues of family identity and questions of 'Where do I belong in the world?' We're creating a mythology, so we're looking at this canon and thinking 'What are the rules?' What can we break and what are ones that are untouchable?"
Kurtzman and Morgan are supervising a creative team that is looking to mix the classic elements of the various monsters with the new cinematic universe's modern direction. Storyboard artists and designers are creating the look of the rebooted franchises, while 10 different writers have each been assigned a monster. To prepare for the new cinematic universe, Kurtzman and Morgan have watched the original Universal Monsters films, as well as the often associated Hammer Horror monster films, which featured the likes of Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Frankenstein.
The Mummy will be released 24 March 2017. Reboots of
Dracula,
Frankenstein and
Van Helsing are expected to follow.
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