If only Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman's business savvy were equal to their screenwriting talent.  The duo have no problem getting attached to blockbuster properties, and while part of that is being credited on previously successful blockbusters, there are other big-budget screenwriters who don't become so prolific.   In addition to moving into television with Sleepy Hollow and plans to produce feature adaptations of Locke & Key and Dragonology, Orci and Kurtzman are also developing remakes of Van Helsing and The Mummy because it's great to make movies no one wanted.  But it turns out they've got big plans for Universal's stable of horror icons beyond simple remakes.

Hit the jump for more.

In a recent interview with IGN, Orci says they're looking to go make sure their lead characters move over into other movies [via CS]:

"There's an interesting thing that could happen at Universal where they have this amazing library of their old monsters and these kinds of heroes, and the idea of trying to create a universe. Van Helsing, and we're also producing The Mummy for them. We're kind of imagining updating these kinds of things. You don't want to just make remakes when you're doing a thing, unless it's worthy of being a remake, but when you have an idea for something that can actually be made different and yet be true to what it was. We just had a notion of how to make it modern and have a slightly different tone. It's not going to be just a remake."

While this seems like a cheap way to follow Marvel's success, crossing over Universal Monsters isn't anything new.  In 1943, there was Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, and in 1948 there was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, which included not only the Wolfman, but also Bela Lugosi reprising his role as Dracula.

Bringing back these crossovers is a fun idea.  Unfortunately, it has the wrong guys at the helm.