Universal Monsters Cinematic Universe (1 Viewer)

ok I get it, it works for Marvel, and WB/DC are now giving it a try, but as much love and respect I have for Universal's Classic Iconic Monsters, I don't really know how I feel about this discussion, to many of those in Hollywood today rely to heavily on Special Effects (CGI) instead of practical effects, story would be a must, but to centrally tie all the classics together I just see this either being one of the greatest set ups of all time, if it works. now the only way I see this working correctly???

Boris.... no he is available
Bela.... no he isn't available
Chaney Jr. not available,

so far this doesn't seem to be working, because well what made the classic monsters great is that part of the actors personality was central to the way they played it . But if this leads to Universal Getting around to releasing a second and third monster set on blu, and a sci-fi one as well, that would be ok.


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-universal-classic-monsters-reboot-alex-kurtzman-chris-morgan-20140716-story.html

well the last two trek movies were good enough to get this idea up and running

I originally found a link to this video on "Cartoon Brew". It's an explanation as to why practical effects get replaced with CG, by the guys who did the practical effects for a re-make of "The Thing". They talk about why their work was replaced.



I should also mention that tying Universal's Monsters into some sort of unified "universe" seems like a bad idea. Like you mentioned a lot of those monsters were iconic because of the actors who played the parts. They don't seem to really fit into a concept of all belonging to some sort of universe, where they would basically be occupying the same time and space.

dana martin said:

Boris.... no he is available
Bela.... no he isn't available
Chaney Jr. not available,

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Well, that's just it, y'see:For almost TWENTY YEARS (let's see, Forrest Gump talked to JFK in '94, so...yep, twenty) Universal's been looking for some excuse to greenlight a "CGI celebrity-resurrection" remake of Frankenstein vs. the Wolfman, and they've used every single movie associated with "Universal horror" to test the market for it.
The Mummy trilogy, the Psycho remake, Van Helsing, the Wolf Man remake--All had strings attached to watch the audience carefully as to whether it was "time yet" for the Classic Monsters franchise to greenlight that undying project.

This year, they're using "Marvel teamups" as a disingenuously loaded excuse, but...twenty years is a very long time for one project to stay in pre-production hell without a good reason.

Edwin-S said:

I should also mention that tying Universal's Monsters into some sort of unified "universe" seems like a bad idea. Like you mentioned a lot of those monsters were iconic because of the actors who played the parts. They don't seem to really fit into a concept of all belonging to some sort of universe, where they would basically be occupying the same time and space.

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Didn't they already try that with Van Helsing? It featured all the biggies in a single film with less than stellar results.

Malcolm R said:

Didn't they already try that with Van Helsing? It featured all the biggies in a single film with less than stellar results.

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Yes, less tan stellar results, but then again the idea or concept has been used before with good results, Rankin/Bass Mad Monster Party, ok that is a guilty pleasure, But I was thinking of Monster Squad o currently Penny Dreadful is doing a great job of blending/blurring lines, and wit Uni trying to do this on te big screen I just don't see the common element, cant Van Helsing , what would he have to do with the creature from the black lagoon or for that fact the mummy?

I don't know if they can pull his off. Aren't more than half of all movies made in a year considered less than desirable? If they go by the odds, they should stop making movies. I'm for this if it gets me a good remake of my beloved CFTBL. If the remake sucks, well I'll just hug my 3D blu ray of the Creature a little tighter.

The original King Kong has survived a bunch of remakes which mostly sucked. Peter Jackson's version excepted. I love that one, but I still love to see and hear Fay scream.

At least two of the monsters, Frank and Creature, have iconic designs that haven't been equaled. Perhaps I should include the Wolfman in that too. That presents the decision to keep the original design mostly intact or a complete redesign. For the Creature, I'm in favor of keeping the original, while updating it with modern practical and cgi effects.

For Frank, the design was heavily dependent on Boris Karloff, so perhaps a look "inspired" by the original, but not a copy either.

Dracula has been done with many different looks already, so that's almost a blank slate to begin with.

Bring 'em on. If they're good, my butt will be in the theater seat. I'll be a kid again for a couple of hours.

I think the best any Universal Monster fan can hope for are fun movies featuring the characters that they love because they aren't making 'our' Universal Monster movies, they're making something new. The good thing is that no matter how good or bad the new movies are, people who have never seen the old Uni movies before will check them out.

Malcolm R said:

Didn't they already try that with Van Helsing? It featured all the biggies in a single film with less than stellar results.

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I enjoyed Van Helsing, it was basically a homage to the old classics with modern CGI thrown into the mix.

Van Helsing is guilty pleasure of mine as well. Not a great film by any stretch, but I find it to be entertaining enough.

actually I always though The Mummy reboot was one of the better homages to the original classics, a few chills and a few laughs, and the right amount of story, and the casting on that one worked

dana martin said:

actually I always though The Mummy reboot was one of the better homages to the original classics, a few chills and a few laughs, and the right amount of story, and the casting on that one worked

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The first one was pretty decent. Like you said it got the mix of chills, humour and story right. The sequels, unfortunately, really missed the boat. It made a person wonder how they could get it so wrong just a couple of years later.

Edit: *get*

actually I always though The Mummy reboot was one of the better homages to the original classics, a few chills and a few laughs, and the right amount of story, and the casting on that one worked

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I'd like to see The Mummy redone as a dark gothic horror. I thought The Wolfman remake turned out pretty well despite all the re-shoots & re-edits & all the other shenanigans that went on. The Blu-ray looks terrific.

Billy Batson said:

I thought The Wolfman remake turned out pretty well despite all the re-shoots & re-edits & all the other shenanigans that went on. The Blu-ray looks terrific.

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but it had the added feature of Rick Baker doing the makeup, and that did make a big difference

dana martin said:

but it had the added feature of Rick Baker doing the makeup, and that did make a big difference

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One of the all time great makeup artists, i remember when i first watched An American Werewolf In London and being in awe of the effects work, even now it holds up really well, a shame so much today is digital, the werewolf transformation in An American Werewolf In London and The Howling ( Rob Bottin ) beats anything seen in films like Underworld, i love practical effects work, digital can be too seamless, i guess it all depends but i really enjoy the practical effects work done by Rick Baker and Rob Bottin.

If the scripts are good and imaginative, the movies will be good and if the scripts are bad, the movies will be bad. They also have to decide if they're going to take it seriously or not. If the creatures are going to have a shared mythology, then it sounds like they're NOT taking it seriously and it will probably be camp, like the later of the pre-Nolan Batman movies. After all, how can Dracula, who is supposed to be 600 years old and the Frankenstein monster, who is supposed to be about 200 years old, have a shared mythology?

Even though many didn't like it, I liked Coppola's Dracula very much. I did not like the recent Mummy reboots. It's exactly because Karloff's Frankenstein and Lugosi's Dracula were canonical as far as movie fans are concerned (although they completely stray from the descriptions in the books), that they can't attempt to use those makeups again - they have to reboot and take a different approach, although the Kenneth Branagh directed version didn't work that well in spite of having DeNiro and hewing closely to the original novel.

Also, in my opinion, there weren't that many great Universal horror films, even though that's what they're known for. After the Laemmle family lost control of the studio in April of 1936, the quality of the films dropped considerably. That's why Karloff wouldn't play the Frankenstein monster again after Son of Frankenstein (1939). He thought the quality was already slipping. And indeed it did.

As far as CGI vs. practical effects is concerned, they both depend upon how well they're executed. "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" proves that when CGI is done right, it's so believable as to be beyond belief. There's never any doubt that the "apes" are right there with the human actors and with one exception (a fire scene), all the sets look real. When you go back and look at the original "Planet of the Apes" with the masks that didn't move much, it's really incredible how far we've come. However, at least insofar as the Frankenstein and Dracula makeups themselves are concerned, they'd probably still be better off as practical makeups for the most part.

I bought the Van Helsing DVD primarily to get the other classic Universal horror films, which came with the set (obviously before the recent Universal Monsters was released). But I hated "Van Helsing" so much, I felt embarrassed to own it. I sold it long ago, even before Universal Monsters was released.

Rather than trying to reboot Dracula, they should do an intelligent sequel. Dacre Stoker, a great grand nephew of Bram Stoker and screenwriter Ian Holt have written a fairly credible sequel called "Dracula, The Un-Dead". While some aspects of it are silly and it's clear that they wrote it with a movie in mind, I'd love to see a movie made of this novel. (Rather than add spoilers here, you can read the plot on Wikipedia if you're interested).

zoetmb said:

If the scripts are good and imaginative, the movies will be good and if the scripts are bad, the movies will be bad.

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But therein lies the problem. Scripts these days are treated as something of an afterthought, not the primary basis for making a movie. I've read that movie producers will often literally begin by thinking "Oh boy, I wanna see this cool FX scene I have in mind" instead of "ok, let's see the interesting story the writer has".

Heck, most movies today start with a scheduled release date, let alone a script or sometimes even a title.

So Now its Dark Universe



as long as this doesn't turn into an action series and it actually it true to the subject matter, this could be good, but it seems i have already seen this originally the 30's and 40's films culminating in House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula, Then the best of Victorian interpretation would be the three seasons of Penny Dreadful.

The trailers for The Mummy don't give me much hope that these films will NOT be turned into action movies. It seems that Universal has already set the template.