Remember the Dark Universe? It's Back, in Theme Park Form!
It began with a photograph and an idea. A stupid, stupid idea.
The right idea can change the world. The wrong idea can get the whole world to laugh at you.
The idea? To capitalize on Universal’s classic collection of iconic monsters by putting them all together in a shared cinematic universe.
The series was supposed to kick off in a big way with a reboot of The Mummy starring one of the biggest and shortest movie stars in the world: Tom Cruise.
Cruise played a mummy hunter who gets involved with an organization that tracks monsters headed by Russell Crowe’s Dr. Jeckyl.
This was supposed to be followed by such theoretically intriguing propositions as an Invisible Man movie that was to star Johnny Depp seemingly seconds before he was cancelled and the prospect of a hundred million dollar Johnny Depp vehicle became an impossibility.
Then Javier Bardem was going to play Dr. Frankenstein opposite Penelope’s Bride of Frankenstein. Or maybe the Wolfman.
Oh, but Universal had such wonders to show us!
It was going to be just like the Marvel Cinematic Universe but more exciting and lucrative because it involves monsters and Frankensreins and shit.
Then The Mummy was released to scathing reviews and underwhelming box-office and Universal’s big ideas all began to look exceedingly stupid and unpalatable.
Name a more monstrously iconic duo!
The public got a taste of the Dark Universe via a movie with one of the biggest box-office attractions in the world and they did not like it one bit. It certainly did not leave the public with a bottomless appetite for more high-concept, big-budget horror thrillers featuring famous monsters of film land.
Instead of inspiring feverish anticipation for further installments The Mummy felt like the deadest of dead ends.
A public that had always viewed the concept of a Dark Universe with skepticism, if not outright disdain, took great delight in The Mummy’s failure, and, by extension, the simultaneously premature and inevitable collapse of the Dark Universe.
The Dark Universe was built for the Schadenfreude of internet smart-asses. It was built to be mocked and ridiculed and laughed at due to the incredible hubris of a studio that thought that it could Xerox the success of Marvel with a bunch of creatures that go bump in the night.
Needless to say, The Mummy did not introduce a thrilling new universe we’ll be exploring for years, even decades to come. Instead it belly flopped.
The spectacular failure of The Dark Universe afforded average moviegoers an opportunity to laugh derisively at the wizards over at Universal and their cynical scheme to borrow Marvel’s blueprint.
So I am amused that Universal is resurrecting, if not the idea of the Dark Universe, then at least the name, through a Dark Universe section of Universal Studios where rubberneckers will reportedly "encounter everything from the experiments of Dr. Victoria Frankenstein to the shadowy landscape where monsters roam in a world of myth and mystery."
This actually makes more sense than a cinematic Dark Universe. Instead of making a bunch of movies that feel like theme park rides Universal instead decided to cut out the middleman and go straight to making theme park rides.
I can’t say the world is any worst for it.
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