The Big Picture

  • The Dark Universe, an attempt to create a cinematic universe based on Universal Monsters, failed to gain momentum and was ultimately abandoned.
  • The Dark Universe aimed to emulate the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but lacked the confidence to embrace the unique qualities of classic monster characters.
  • Universal is still interested in uniting various monster films in a shared continuity, as seen with the film Renfield, which connects to the original Dracula movies.

In May 2017, a publicity photo was released from Universal Pictures to drum up extra hype for the studio’s Dark Universe, a cinematic universe based on the Universal Monsters brand. The image showed a collection of big-name talent ranging from Tom Cruise to Russell Crowe to Javier Bardem, and thanks to the magic of Photoshop, all the actors assembled for various roles in The Mummy and upcoming Dark Universe movies were now in one image. For one moment, moviegoers got a glimpse into what a star-studded Dark Universe could look like. It was the last glimpse they’d ever get, however, as the entire endeavor would be scuttled within a year.

The genesis of the Dark Universe goes back to where so many 2010s blockbusters originated: The Avengers. This film’s record-breaking box-office haul proved that audiences would not only show up for cinematic universe storytelling, but that it could be a huge draw and a way to build up excitement and must-see status for multiple films at once. In July 2014, Universal dove head-first into this style of blockbuster storytelling by announcing that Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan were spearheading a new project — one that would reimagine the Universal Monsters as one cohesive cinematic universe.

The Mummy Film Poster
The Mummy
PG-13
Action
Adventure
Fantasy

An ancient Egyptian princess is awakened from her crypt beneath the desert, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia and terrors that defy human comprehension.

Release Date
June 9, 2017
Director
Alex Kurtzman
Runtime
110 minutes
Writers
Christopher McQuarrie , Jon Spaihts , David Koepp , Alex Kurtzman , Jenny Lumet , Dylan Kussman

How Did the Dark Universe Come About?

Now, back in the 1930s and 1940s, the likes of Dracula and The Wolfman had long beaten Iron Man and Captain America to the movie crossover punch. However, since those days, any attempt to relaunch these characters had been done in disparate solo outings. There was never any thought that Benicio del Toro’s The Wolfman and Brendan Fraser’s The Mummy existed in the same universe, but that was now a thing of the past, and Universal was putting big blockbuster talent behind this effort to make the next Marvel Cinematic Universe. Kurtzman had been involved in big hits like Star Trek and Transformers while Morgan was the primary screenwriter of Universal’s Fast & Furious saga.

At the time, the initial plan was for a rebooted take on The Mummy to kick off this new, still yet-to-be-titled cinematic universe in April 2016. However, a few months later, some rumors emerged suggesting that the October 2014 title Dracula Untold had been tweaked in post-production to include a new ending that would allow Luke Evans' version of Dracula to be incorporated into the planned slate of Universal Monsters titles. Additionally, a knowledgeable vampire portrayed by Charles Dance was also seen as having the potential to be this franchise’s equivalent to the MCU's Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). However, Dracula Untold would later be discarded entirely, leaving The Mummy as the undisputed kick-off point to this saga.

In November 2015, the key creative personnel behind what would become the Dark Universe explained to Variety the underlying appeal of relaunching these characters as scarier superheroes. Specifically, folks like Morgan believed that audiences would be enamored with and even relate to the darker sensibilities of figures like Dracula and The Wolfman, especially compared to the perfect physicality and heroics of typical Marvel superheroes. This same month, Tom Cruise signed on to headline The Mummy, establishing a precedent for buzzy big-name leads that future Dark Universe projects would lean into.

'The Mummy' Was Meant to Kick Off the Dark Universe

That wasn’t the only way The Mummy was establishing norms for subsequent franchise installments to build on. The film’s protagonist, Nick Morton (Cruise), spends the second act of The Mummy wandering around a facility owned by the corporation Prodigium, which tracks monsters from all over the globe. Here, teases of characters like the Creature from the Black Lagoon fill the screen while the whole organization is overseen by Dr. Jekyll (Russell Crowe). Curiously, this figure was not part of the classic Universal Monsters mythology. A pair of big-budget film adaptations of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were made in the Universal Monsters style in the 1930s and 1940s, but none hailed from Universal. Thus, The Mummy marked the first appearance of Dr. Jekyll and his alter-ego Mr. Hyde in any Universal Monsters media.

Another peculiar element came about from how the titular Mummy of The Mummy, portrayed by Sofia Boutella, is eventually killed by Morton. This feat comes at a grave cost and leaves Morton disfigured to an unknown degree. This ambiguity comes from how Morton remains in the shadows after defeating his foe, while an epilogue, which also features a suddenly resurrected Jake Johnson, keeps Cruise’s character wrapped up in layers upon layers of bandages. The intent here seems to have been to leave Morton’s fate and physical appearance ambiguous so that future Dark Universe movies could fill in the blanks.

Such future projects began to come into focus in the months leading up to The Mummy’s June 2017 premiere. The first of these was announced in February 2016 as a fresh new take on The Invisible Man, which would star Johnny Depp, continuing the casting style of having big names inhabit iconic monsters. In April 2017, Bill Condon was attached to direct a new reimagining of The Bride of Frankenstein, a significant coup considering he was hot off helming the massive box office hit Beauty and the Beast. This feature would eventually sign Javier Bardem to play Frankenstein’s monster, while Angelina Jolie was eyeballed for the titular Bride.

'The Mummy' Crushed the Hopes for the Dark Universe

Just days before The Mummy premiered, further clarity on what the Dark Universe could entail was delivered through the news that Universal wanted none other than Dwayne Johnson to play a new take on The Wolfman. With an avalanche of projects waiting in the wings, and Bride of Frankenstein even given a February 2019 release date, expectations were high for The Mummy. Unfortunately, this new Dark Universe title ended up falling significantly short, even divorced from hopes that it would become the Iron Man of monster movies. Scoring absolutely dreadful reviews, it was only a few days into its theatrical run that analysts began to predict that the film would end up losing nearly $100 million for Universal.

Initially, it seemed like the plan was for the Dark Universe to keep on churning and use The Mummy as a learning experience. This was reflected in how, a little over a month after The Mummy crashed and burned in theaters, reports emerged of Channing Tatum being a favorite by Universal to play Van Helsing. However, it became clear in October 2017 that the Dark Universe’s days were numbered when Bride of Frankenstein was put on hold. What Universal initially described as a temporary pause quickly transformed into the project being shelved. By January 2019, the entire Dark Universe saga had joined Condon’s Bride of Frankenstein in being obsolete.

With the Dark Universe now in the rearview mirror, it’s easy to see why this would-be franchise failed to gain momentum. The Marvel Cinematic Universe worked because it embraced what made its characters great; there was confidence in embracing the unique qualities of figures like the Guardians of the Galaxy or Black Panther. By contrast, the Dark Universe largely abandoned qualities that people associated with vintage interpretations of Dracula or The Mummy. Gone were spooky castles, gothic backdrops, and queer-coded storytelling. Instead, there were now avalanches of CGI spectacle that could’ve come from any movie.

It's interesting to note that the same year The Mummy failed at the box office, It (which hailed from director Andy Muscheitti, who was previously signed on to helm The Mummy) hit unprecedented box office heights for an R-rated horror movie. Whereas The Mummy was a financial disaster by trying to emulate past lucrative action films, It resonated with audiences by embracing its distinct horror vibes. This only rubs further salt in the wounds of the only proper Dark Universe installment, being another blistering reminder of all this franchise sacrificed in trying to be universally appealing.

Is the Dark Universe Still Happening?

Nicolas Cage as Dracula, looking toward the camera and baring his fangs in Renfield
Image via Universal Pictures

While the Dark Universe withered away and died, Universal has never fully given up on the idea of uniting various disparate monster films in one expansive continuity. The 2023 feature Renfield featured no pieces of connective tissue to The Invisible Man or the 2017 Mummy film, but it did explicitly tie its plot into the original Bela Lugosi Dracula movies from the 1930s. The motion picture even went so far as to digitally add Renfield's leading men, Nicolas Cage and Nicholas Hoult, into old footage from the very first Dracula film, thus suggesting that this vintage horror picture and Renfield occupy the same continuity. While The Mummy was seeking to carve out a whole new world of interconnected narratives, Renfield attempted to pull a Spider-Man: No Way Home in retroactively making pre-established motion pictures part of a larger cinematic puzzle.

Unsurprisingly, this kind of connective tissue didn't spark nearly as much excitement as, say, Han Solo re-emerging in The Force Awakens, mostly because Dracula movies have become extremely common in mainstream culture. Still, the basic attempt to interweave Renfield with one of the oldest Universal Monsters titles (rather than just rebooting with a fresh new version of Dracula like Dracula Untold did in 2014) demonstrates that some form of the cinematic universe approach endures in post-The Mummy Universal Monsters projects. The Dark Universe is dead and never coming back, especially with the high-profile failure of so many other cinematic universes. However, the notion of uniting assorted Universal Monsters movies (even just specific franchises like the Dracula movies or Wolfman titles) doesn't appear to be dead yet.

Upcoming titles like 2024's remake of The Wolfman (the reins of whose titular character have recently been passed from Ryan Gosling to Christopher Abbott) also seem to be beating their drum when it comes to reimagining Universal Monsters figures. Even if these subsequent films aren’t a total home run, it’s doubtful they’ll fare worse than the Dark Universe, whose greatest creative legacy is providing an amusingly bizarre publicity photo.

The Mummy is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.

RENT ON PRIME VIDEO