Dark Universe

'The Bride!' reminds us of one of the biggest failures in film history: the Dark Universe

There is an Internet relic that seems to me as fascinating as it is incredible, because somehow it still stands and is the representation of the failure of an entire studio: the Twitter account of the Dark Universe, where on May 22, 2017, a star-filled photo was posted with the text “Witness the beginning of a #DarkUniverse” and from which we never heard again. They didn’t even use it to promote The Mummy, which ultimately was the only film in this meager cinematic universe. But almost ten years ago it made sense: everyone was […]

They didn’t even use it to promote The Mummy, which ultimately was the only film in this meager cinematic universe. But almost ten years ago it made sense: everyone was building their universe, after all. Why not aim big? The answer, sadly for them, was at the box office.

Make Mine Dark!

To understand the reason for the existence of this Dark Universe, we have to go back to 2008, when Marvel released Iron Man and, half knowing and half unintentionally, started a shared universe of movies and series that continues to this day with crossovers, references, nods, and the feeling of witnessing something truly cohesive.

Of course, everyone said, “Hey, if they can do it, we can too,” and all sorts of proposals emerged, each stranger than the last: the DC Extended Universe, the Robin Hood Universe, the Monsterverse… Seeing the trend, Universal did not hesitate to bring out their old monster movies, give them a facelift, and unite them all in a macro-saga: the Dark Universe was born, under the shadow of Marvel.

In that initial photo (which is debated whether it was made with Photoshop or by gathering all the talent in one room) were Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Sofia Boutella, Javier Bardem, and Johnny Depp. The first three starred in The Mummy, but they were already preparing for the future, with Bardem as the Monster of Frankenstein and Depp as The Invisible Man.

They even announced a good handful of movies, including The Bride of Frankenstein, Van Helsing, The Wolf Man, Dracula, The Phantom of the Opera, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Do you know how many we actually got to see? Exactly: none.

Apparently, there was so much chaos in the writers’ room where the master plots for this universe were decided that someone actually said “Let’s build the plane while we learn to fly it” (one of the worst analogies in history), in response to valid questions like “Should all monsters be villains or can they be heroes?”. They clearly didn’t have a grasp on even the most basic concepts.

The curious thing is that they could have moved forward, because The Mummy was a resounding success, grossing 410 million, but the critics mocked it so much that they decided to leave all the plots about Doctor Jekyll or the future of Tom Cruise’s character hanging, and nothing was ever heard again. A failed universe by all accounts.

In the end, it must be said, some of these movies were indeed released, but not in their original vision. The Invisible Man replaced Johnny Depp with Elisabeth Moss to deliver a powerful film about abuse in 2020, and The Bride of Frankenstein became, of course, The Bride!, which has just been released in theaters with a public reaction that, being generous, is lukewarm. Being very generous.

However, since they had the brand, they decided to take advantage of it for their theme parks: as part of the Epic Universe at Universal parks, one can take a ride through the Dark Universe, a dark world filled with terrifying creatures and monstrous experiments.

And while you’re at it, hop on a couple of attractions that are supposed to be really scary… Although, really, what is scarier than a business failure that leaves you with a half-open Twitter account? Chills.

From 'Saint Seiya' to Frankenstein: all the franchises that wanted to be like Marvel and failed in the attempt

There is no doubt at this point: Marvel is one of the most incredible successes in the history of cinema. For almost 20 years now, the House of Ideas has known how to create a coherent, quality shared universe in which people want to invest money and time (at least until the arrival of Avengers: Endgame, which many labeled as the end of the adventure, with some justification). In total, Disney has spent just over 7 billion dollars to produce 37 films, and in return, they have recovered 32.5 billion […]

There is no doubt at this point: Marvel is one of the most incredible successes in the history of cinema. For almost 20 years now, the House of Ideas has known how to create a coherent, high-quality shared universe in which people want to invest their money and time (at least, until the arrival of Avengers: Endgame, which many labeled as the end of the adventure, with some justification).

In total, Disney has spent just over 7 billion dollars to produce 37 films, and in return they have recovered 32.5 billion just at the box office, not taking into account the success of streaming or VOD. Obviously, everyone in Hollywood has wanted to copy them. It can’t be that hard, right? If they could do it, why shouldn’t we use the franchises we have on hand to see what happens? This is the story of 6 failed attempts that to this day should serve as an example of what not to do under any circumstances if you want to succeed. These are the shared universes that never took off.

Knights of the Zodiac

In 2023, after years and years of talking about a movie based on Knights of the Zodiac, the manga by Masami Kurumada, the live-action adaptation finally hit theaters, with Mackenyu as Seiya and directed by a certain Tomek Baginski, a specialist in creating animated scenes for video games who here had to face an absurd script that neither fans nor newcomers to the saga understood very well.

The movie not only promised a sequel but an entire franchise that would follow the characters in their solo adventures, and it is probably what we would have had… If it weren’t for the fact that it grossed 7 million dollars worldwide, lost a ton of money, and Seiya and company were put back into the anime niche from which they should never have emerged.

Universal desperately needed a success like Marvel’s, but they didn’t have any well-known franchises to achieve it… So they decided to dust off their monster universe, which had had continuous crossovers decades earlier, to give it a makeover. In fact, they counted their chickens before they hatched, and even took a photo with all the protagonists of the Dark Universe: Tom Cruise, Javier Bardem, Johnny Depp, Russell Crowe, and Sofia Boutella. They even created a Twitter account… which is still open today and only has that photo.

Its first major release was The Mummy, starring Cruise and Boutella, which was a relative box office success (it made 410 million) but received such a critical and public backlash that it mocked the idea of a shared universe of classic monsters, leading them to decide to cancel everything they had in the works, some of which were completely scrapped, like The Bride of Frankenstein, or transformed into something better (like The Invisible Man). The fanfare of the Dark Universe created by Danny Elfman was never heard from again.

King Arthur

This is called capturing the current sentiment of the people: Guy Ritchie, along with Warner, decided that they needed to create a cinematic universe in the style of Marvel, but with King Arthur as the protagonist. In fact, in 2017, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword was released in theaters, and at that time they were about to start filming its sequel, based on Percival. The idea was to make five distinct parts and, when they were successful, to unite them in a kind of Avengers titled, predictably, Camelot. It grossed 30 million less than it cost, and they decided that people had already turned the page on Arthurian legends. They were not wrong.

Spider-man Villains

Technically, this universe succeeded. At least, in part. The three parts of Venom made money, and Morbius, in some way, recouped its costs. From there, the debacle: Madame Web and Kraven The Hunter became memes, Sony lost all its credibility, and the world stopped being interested in this universe of Spider-man villains that had connections to each other which, instead of generating hype, became a source of laughter on social media. After their third failure, they decided it was time to walk away with the money raised (which there was some) and hope to be remembered as just a footnote in history.

Valiant

If Marvel and DC have everyone excited, why wouldn’t there be a space for the third contender, Valiant? The indie publisher has been trying to carve out a niche in pop culture since 1989, and it has only succeeded among the most comic book fans. That wasn’t going to stop them from casting Vin Diesel to star in Bloodshot, the first of many movies in this shared universe. In fact, they already knew that there would be two Harbinger movies and a crossover called Harbinger Wars that…

Doesn’t ring a bell, does it? There’s a reason for that: Bloodshot was released during the Covid pandemic, made 37.3 million dollars and no one was talking about it or asking for more installments of the franchise. It is said that Diesel wants to make a second part. The only question is… does anyone else want it to happen?

The Amazing Spider-man

The success of The Avengers made everyone rethink their strategies, especially if you had another superhero franchise in hand. This was the case for Sony, which in 2012 also released The Amazing Spider-man 2 and began to dream big. Not only with the third and fourth parts but also with movies based on Venom, the Sinister Six (this one would be divided into two parts), Carnage, Black Cat, Spider-man 2099… What happened? Fortunately, Sony gave permission, in 2015, for Spider-man to appear in Marvel Studios movies and put an end to this nonsense. Tom Holland took on the web-slinger role and they started thinking about a plan B. Believe me: they came out ahead.

It failed spectacularly, but the cinematic universe that wanted to compete with the MCU is back

Universal Pictures is trying to revitalize its failed attempt to create a cinematic universe known as Dark Universe with a new approach for one of its most iconic franchises: The Mummy. The original project, which featured a star-studded cast including Tom Cruise, failed miserably despite its large budget. The Mummy, released in 2017 under the direction of Alex Kurtzman, received a disastrous 15% on Rotten Tomatoes, being criticized for its lack of identity and tonal coherence. Will the second time be the charm? That film, which aimed to kick off an interconnected universe of classic monsters, fell short […]

Universal Pictures is trying to revitalize its failed attempt to create a cinematic universe known as Dark Universe with a new approach for one of its most iconic franchises: The Mummy. The original project, which featured a star-studded cast including Tom Cruise, failed miserably despite its large budget. The Mummy, released in 2017 under the direction of Alex Kurtzman, received a disastrous 15% on Rotten Tomatoes, being criticized for its lack of identity and tonal coherence.

Is the second time the charm?

That movie, which aimed to kick off an interconnected universe of classic monsters, ended up being a failed attempt to reflect the foundations of the successful Marvel Cinematic Universe. Although Tom Cruise played a treasure hunter facing an ancient princess, the story was considered more of a vehicle for the actor than a proper adventure. Its box office gross of just over 400 million dollars was not enough to justify its production, leading Universal to abort plans for the Dark Universe, except for the successful adaptation of The Invisible Man.

However, recent reports indicate that Universal Pictures, in collaboration with Blumhouse and Atomic Monster, has begun production on a new version of The Mummy in Ireland. This proposal promises a completely renewed approach that is disconnected from previous adaptations. With director and screenwriter Lee Cronin at the helm, the new project will feature a cast that includes Laia Costa, Jack Reynor, May Calamawy, Veronica Falcon, and Mai Elghety.

The exact plot has not yet been revealed, but the new version promises to bring a fresh air to the story, moving away from the previous approach. Expectations are rising among genre fans and filmmakers, who see this attempt as an opportunity to repair the legacy of The Mummy in the history of horror cinema.

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Why the Marvel Cinematic Universe works (and others don’t)

Why did the Avengers succeed while the Justice League flopped? Find out now!

The enormous success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe cannot be overstated. In just a few weeks, “Avengers: Endgame” has passed “Titanic” as the second highest grossing movie of all time, and is rapidly approaching “Avatar’s” number 1 spot. In fact, MCU movies make up half the spots of the top 10 highest box office grosses ever.

This brings us to the billion dollar question, “How did Marvel overtake mega-franchises like Harry Potter and Star Wars with characters that were once barely a blip in pop culture? Also, why have all the other cinematic universes failed to match its success?

Why the Marvel’s Cinematic Universe works (and others don’t)

Building a universe (in a cave with a box of scraps)

In the 1990s, Marvel, like most comic book companies, was facing financial ruin. After filing for bankruptcy, Marvel attempted to save itself by selling off the film rights to its most popular characters.

Movie studios jumped at the chance to gain the rights to cultural powerhouses like Spider-Man and the X-Men (whose film rights were sold to Sony and Fox, respectively). Other Marvel characters, while beloved for decades by dedicated comic audiences, failed to break into the mainstream pop culture sphere. Characters like Thor and Iron Man are objectively cool, but they didn’t have the same draw as characters like Spidey or Wolverine.

After the breakout successes of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man franchise and Fox’s X-Men series, Marvel decided to take out a loan of $500 million to create Marvel Studios. The idea behind Marvel Studios was that Marvel could use some of the lesser-known characters from its comic history to create a shared cinematic universe.

If the venture failed, the studio could simply liquidate itself and sell the film rights to its remaining characters to interested studios. Still owning the rights to the majority of the Avengers characters (most notably Captain America and Hulk), Marvel Studios attempted a bold strategy. They decided to make individual films of various characters before smashing them together in a massive blockbuster.

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It was a bold and untried strategy at the time. Sure, studios had dabbled in crossing over their characters to modest success, (such as “Alien vs. Predator” or “Freddy vs. Jason”) but no studio had ever attempted to create a massive crossover universe out of an established property on this scale.

The only thing that was even close was the Universal Classic Monsters. From the ’20s through 1960, Universal created films with several monsters like Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, and the Wolf Man. From time to time, characters and their respective actors would cross over into other films. It was arguably a framework for the MCU, but it was a loose framework.

Marvel was the perfect property for this experiment, as the company had been crossing over its characters in the comics for decades.

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Marvel Studios began with “Iron Man,” who was supposedly chosen to receive his own film due to his massive toy potential. The movie’s large budget, B-list main character, and at-the-time leperous main star Robert Downey Jr raised eyebrows among industry experts, who predicted a flop. In fact, Kevin Feige said Downey’s casting was the toughest fight he had with Disney. The 2008 movie was, as we all know, a massive success. It ended up singlehandedly recouping Marvel’s $500 million loan, convincing Marvel to move on with their experiment. The film made about $585 million, according to IMDb.

Iron Man

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Iron Man’s approach to a cinematic universe was subtle. The film stood on its own, peppered with references to a larger universe (S.H.I.E.L.D, Nick Fury, the Avengers Initiative, etc) for hardcore Marvel fans to salivate over. The continued success of character films like “Captain America: The First Avenger” and “Thor” maintained Marvel’s momentum until the release of the groundbreaking first Avengers film in 2012.

In building up to “The Avengers,” Marvel focused on telling self-contained stories with compelling characters first, and on connecting these characters in a shared universe second. By making these formerly unknown characters worthy in the eyes of the public, they drummed up interest for their eventual crossover. It’s this sense of patience that allowed for Marvel to craft its cinematic universe into something that was worth keeping up with. Their system of “phases” made sure that every crossover paid off in a big way.

By building up audience confidence in their brand, Marvel was able to successfully dive deeper into their character library. Eventually, they pulled out then-unknown characters like Black Panther, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. While the rival DCEU hoped that the enduring legacies of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman would lead to massive box office success, Marvel built character legacies from the ground up.

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With more than 20 movies in its universe, it can be hard to avoid audience fatigue. However, Marvel successfully navigated this by switching up genres and directors within its films. The films can range from spy-thriller (“Captain America: Winter Soldier”), heist-comedy (“Ant-Man”), cosmic misfit comedy (“Guardians of the Galaxy”), to Afrofuturist epic (“Black Panther”). Marvel’s signature style of loose dialogue and lighthearted, self-aware tone allowed them to create a consistent brand amongst its wide variety of characters without becoming repetitive.

Marvel Studios president and MCU brainchild Kevin Feige has stated that each movie is made for its own individual story first.

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While the grand crossover outlines are there, directors and writers are given plenty of freedom to craft their own stories. This, along with Marvel’s patience in getting audiences invested in its characters, is the main reason the MCU has seen the success that it has. It builds naturally to crossover events instead of shoving a crossover movie in your face that tells you, not shows you, that these characters are important.

Why are other cinematic universes struggling?

The runaway success of 2012’s “The Avengers” caught the attention of studio heads from across the world. The potential profits of a cinematic universe were massive, and every studio with recognizable characters immediately scrambled to follow Marvel’s lead. The most notable of these was, of course, DC.

With the release of 2013’s “Man of Steel,” DC had seemingly followed the formula set by “Iron Man:” create a standalone story with only cursory references to a larger universe. Unfortunately for DC, “Man of Steel” received only lukewarm reviews, with critics and audiences lamenting its dreary tone and color palette.

Sensing danger, DC decided to immediately move forward with its cinematic universe, or rather DC Extended Universe. DC continued with director Zack Snyder, whose bleak and pseudo-deep subversions of superhero narratives were clearly not resonating with audiences. The next film was “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” a film that was somehow overlong, stuffy, and unearned.

The movie immediately thrust new versions of Batman and Wonder Woman onto the big screen, failing to slowly build up the hype of a major crossover event.

By the time “Justice League” rolled around, DC showed that it still hadn’t learned how to properly build up a cinematic universe. It introduced more characters to the big screen without buildup (Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg,) rapidly attempting to play catch-up with Marvel to no avail. It would have been ludicrous to think only 10 years ago that a movie starring a talking raccoon and a tree would become a cultural phenomenon while the Justice League’s long-awaited big-screen debut would get a lukewarm reception.

By not trusting audiences and slowly building up their characters, DC made their crossover movies feel like any old superhero movie instead of a massive crossover event. This, combined with DC announcing dozens of movies that have barely made it past development hell, shattered audience faith in DC to make a coherent cinematic universe.

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DC has started to regain goodwill with their solo movies like “Wonder Woman,” “Aquaman,” and “Shazam!” They are clearly moving away from lofty, pseudo-intelligent Snyder epics and more towards contained, tightly made stories. This has granted them significantly more critical and financial success, so it’s likely DC will focus on solo films for the near future.

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Other cinematic universes have come and gone in the MCU’s lifetime. The X-Men franchise served as a sort of predecessor to the MCU, but its wildly inconsistent quality and haphazard continuity prevented it from fully achieving its potential.

Universal recently attempted combining their classic horror monsters into a modern cinematic universe known as the Dark Universe. Spearheaded with “The Mummy,” an action-packed Tom Cruise vehicle, the Dark Universe failed to take off before it really even started. Instead of creating a self-contained story that took place in a bigger world, “The Mummy” aggressively beat audiences over the head with setup for sequels and crossovers.

I mean come on, people; remember when they released a trailer for the movie without music?

This unsubtle, inauthentic buildup pushed audiences away, and the myriad of announced Dark Universe films are currently nowhere to be seen.

A particularly bold move is crossing over a bunch of properties that have nothing to do with each other (besides them all being owned by the same company). Hasbro is attempting to do this with its various properties such as GI Joe and Rom the Spaceknight. Hanna-Barbera is currently working on something similar with Scooby-Doo, Captain Caveman, and Wacky Races. It’s hard not to be cynical about mashups like these, as they seem to be brainchildren of studio executives throwing every remotely popular property they have into a blender. They are unfortunately completely skipping over the carefully laid groundwork of the MCU.

Wrapping up

All in all, the safest way to create a cinematic universe is simply to copy the foundation of the MCU. Create a bunch of compelling individual characters and then cross them over once audiences actually care. Do not simply throw a bunch of recognizable characters together, hoping it’ll have the same impact.

Planning must be careful and slow, and the studio must balance out their grand plans with the desires of individual filmmakers to craft independently satisfying films. If you can strike this balance successfully, you end up with the MCU. If you fail, you’ll simply land on top of the pile of other cinematic universe attempts.