Remember Universals Dark Universe? the Cinematic Universe that launched with Tom Cruise’s The Mummy? Luckily for Universal, most people have already bleached it from their memories. But, as big a bomb as that movie was, Universal is not going to let good monsters sit on the shelf and do nothing, they just aren’t going to jam them into a poorly conceived shared universe.
Variety is reporting that the first new film the studio is planning to make with their monsters will be The Invisible Man and that they’ve nabbed Upgrade (the better version of Venom) director, Leigh Whannell to helm the project.
Instead of a big universe, the studio is ” bringing creative directors with distinctive visions to the classic characters.” This is probably the best plan. Universes have a lot of moving parts and if any one of those parts fails, it puts the whole thing in jeopardy. Hell, look at the remains of the DCEU. As to what the boundaries will be for the films, the studio had this to say:
“the titles will be rooted in horror, with no restrictions on budget, tone, or rating, and filmmakers are open to take some liberties with origin stories and interpretation to update the material for modern audiences.
When the Dark Universe was a thing, Johnny Depp was set to star. Variety reports that he is no longer attached, but there’s also no news of who might take up the mantle.