The ‘Dark Universe’: The most pathetic attempt at a movie franchise in history
Thanks entirely to Marvel Studios, every major outfit in Hollywood wants a shared universe of its own, conveniently forgetting that Kevin Feige’s comic book conglomerate played a patient long-term game to cultivate an audience who were invested and on board for such ambitious mythologies.
Several pretenders to the throne emerged in the aftermath of 2008’s Iron Man, but not a single one failed as miserably as the Dark Universe. Universal’s stable of classic monsters had become enduring icons of cinema almost a century beforehand and were constantly being refreshed and reinvented on-screen to appeal to modern audiences.
However, the best examples almost always lean into the gothic trappings and inherent tragedy that defines them, making it a bizarre move for the executives to decide a string of interconnected, action-packed blockbusters boasting some of the biggest names in Hollywood was the way to go.
Tom Cruise’s The Mummy was branded as the introduction to the Dark Universe, which only happened because the movie’s director had actively ignored the first attempt. 2014’s Dracula Untold made a point of shooting a post-credits scene set in the present day that was designed to tie Luke Evans’ title character and Charles Dance’s Master Vampire into the ambitious saga, which turned out to be for nothing.
When asked if Dracula Untold was canon, Alex Kurtzman answered with an unequivocal “no”. By extension, the Dark Universe had already failed after the movie that shot an extra scene for the express purpose of establishing a wider world was ignored by the very next filmmaker who came on board.
From there, Kurtzman’s own film went out of its way to introduce Russell Crowe’s Dr Jekyll as the Dark Universe’s Nick Fury-like figure, with the Prodigium organisation acting as its version of the MCU’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Weeks before The Mummy had released, though, the Dark Universe made a bold statement of overconfidence that would become its defining image for all the wrong reasons.
Alongside The Mummy stars Cruise, Crowe, and Sofia Boutella stood Javier Bardem and Johnny Depp, who were intended to lead new versions of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man, despite none of them actually being in the same room at the time when the picture was taken. Meanwhile, Bill Condon was developing Bride of Frankenstein with eyes on Angelina Jolie for the title role, with rumours touting Dwayne Johnson for The Wolfman.
Kurtzman’s opening chapter may have earned upwards of $400million at the box office, but it still lost a fortune due to its massive budget and exorbitant marketing spend, all while reports emerged of Cruise exerting his star power to take an increasingly hands-on role that effectively reduced the filmmaker to a bystander.
“That was probably the biggest failure of my life, both personally and professionally,” Kurtzman told The Playlist. “I didn’t become a director until I made that movie, and it wasn’t because it was well directed, it was because it wasn’t”. Beyond that, The Mummy achieved the impressive feat of single-handedly torpedoing the Dark Universe’s expansion plans at the very first hurdle, securing eight Golden Raspberry Award nominations in the process and taking home the trophy for ‘Worst Actor’.
Just like that, any in-development projects and actors already signed to deals were swept under the rug, with Universal boss Donna Langley admitting “the world was not asking for a shared universe of classic monsters”, which is putting it lightly. Instead, the entire operation was dragged around the back and put out of its misery, with its failure made all the more embarrassing by what came next.
Going back to basics, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man was the first production to feature a classic Universal creature since The Mummy, placing the emphasis on story and character first and foremost. Not only was it almost 28 times cheaper to make, but the profit margins were huge after it recouped its thrifty $7m budget more than 20 times over in ticket sales to go along with widespread acclaim to not just bury the Dark Universe but burn it to the ground, stomp on its ashes, and make an absolute mockery of the worst attempted franchise ever.
