Universal Pictures' "Dark Universe" fell apart after flops like Dracula Untold and The Mummy, and a cast photo shared by the studio has now become a point of ridicule. However, while that shared world concept is now dead, the studio remains committed to bringing these classic movie monsters back to the big screen for a new audience.
During a recent interview with Collider, screenwriter David Koepp explained that he's recently revisited his screenplay for The Bride of Frankenstein and made some big changes which brings it to "a place where I kind of always wanted it to be," while crediting Universal for letting him "try again."
"So I have a version now and they have a version that we all really like," he explains. "I think they’re talking to directors now." As for what went wrong with the Dark Universe, Koepp didn't get into specifics, but praised the studio for going back to the drawing board when things didn't work out.
"Not all ideas work out. To their credit, what I really admired about Universal is they threw their hands up and went, ‘Hold on. This isn’t working out. Let’s stop and think for a year or two.’ I thought that was really smart. And big corporations don’t often do that. There aren’t a lot of New Coke moments where they go, ‘This is not as we hoped. We’re going to stop and go off on this other direction.’"
It remains to be seen when we'll get to see The Bride of Frankenstein, but it's clearly a project back on Universal's radar (which is no great surprise after the success of The Invisible Man earlier this year).
The original plan was for Angelina Jolie to star in this, but chances are things have now changed in that regard.