The name of the game these days is franchises, and you can’t have just one. While Universal can print money with the "Fast & Furious" series, that vehicle is already looking towards the end. So what will replace it? Monsters. That’s right, the studio is reviving their classic monster movies and putting the various characters together Marvel style into a single universe with the intention of offering a fresh, scary spin on the blockbuster template everyone is using. So the studio —which seems to be pretending "Dracula Untold," which was released only a few months ago, never happened— has hired a team to bring it together into a cohesive vision.
THR reports that Noah Hawley ("Fargo" TV series), Aaron Guzikowski ("Prisoners"), and Ed Solomon ("Men in Black") are joining Chris Morgan ("Fast & Furious") and Alex Kurtzman ("Star Trek," "Transformers") to put their heads together and keep the train moving for Universal’s variety of creatures. Plans are still being mapped out, but "The Mummy" is already slated to arrive on June 24, 2016 with another, still undermined picture slated for April 21, 2017. Could it be "The Wolfman"? Maybe. Guzikowski has been tasked to pen the script, so perhaps that means it’s taking priority.
And while the talent is strong, the proof will be in the execution, and Universal must show it’s learned from past mistakes (bungling Mark Romanek‘s "The Wolfman," and uh, the aforementioned "Dracula Untold"). Can Universal make this work? Let us know what you think below.
