How to Fix the Dark Universe: Part 1 (The Basics)

It's a cliche to point out by this point that ever since the explosive success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, every other studio in Hollywood has been trying to launch their own interconnected universe of films to get in on the action. But less pointed out is the fact that, so far, Disney and Marvel have been the only ones who've pulled it off with any luck. The DC Cinematic Universe has finally pulled out of its tailspin but Justice League's box office may make that too little, too late. Legendary's MonsterVerse with the 2014 Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island is doing all right, but there are significant gaps in releases for that. Even the nascent expanded Star Wars movies have been dealing with a lot of behind the scenes drama. But no enterprise shows off the failure of launching an expanded cinematic universe more than Universal Studios' Dark Universe project, which came into theaters dead on arrival with last summer's The Mummy.

The Mummy failed for many reasons; bad script, unclear tone, too much focus on the lore, but the initial idea of rebooting the classic Universal Monsters as a Marvel-style cinematic universe wasn't a bad one. After all, the Universal Monster movies of the 1930s and 40s basically invented the concept of crossover movies and shared universes, even if they weren't as fastidious about the continuity and actors as Marvel is. It's an idea I think still has merits, as does Universal as they've brought in a new producer team to rework the concept from the ground up. But just for fun, I'm going to do my own take on it. Over this three-part series, I'm going to lay out my own thoughts on how Universal should fix the Dark Universe in regards to which characters to use, what approach to take, and what some of these potential films could be like.

(And we'll pretend the good version of the Dark Universe doesn't already exist and is called Penny Dreadful.)

But before we get into specific movies, we've got to hammer out the basics first.

The Classic Universal Monsters

The most basic of basic questions to start with is, who are the Universal Monsters? This is actually a harder question to answer than you might think. Universal made a ton of monster movies back during their golden age, many drawn from pre-existing folklore and public domain horror novels, so who exactly counts as a "Universal Monster" or who's just from an old book or black & white horror movie may be different than who you think. Obviously we need the big six, the most iconic of the monsters. Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Bride of Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. They're a given. But who else?

The Phantom of the Opera? He's certainly iconic enough, but has the musical deprived him of his horror? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Good choice, but Universal didn't do an adaptation of that story back in their golden age. The Hunchback of Notre Dame? Is he even really a monster? Making a list is difficult because technically King Kong, Norman Bates, and the shark from Jaws are all Universal monsters, even if we would never think of them as such. Any list of Universal Monsters is going to be subjective is my point. But I've done plenty of research and given it plenty of thought and made one I think is satisfactory. Drawing from Universal's classic catalogue, Hammer's British remakes, along with parodies and homages to both, here are the nine monsters that must be included in the Dark Universe:

Dracula
Frankenstein
The Mummy
The Bride of Frankenstein
The Wolf Man
The Invisible Man
The Creature From the Black Lagoon
The Phantom of the Opera
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

I've also chosen a few more possible monsters to be included, but you'll have to wait for Part Three to find out what they are. This list, in my opinion, covers all the bases. They're all from black & white movies (even if they're not Universal movies, like Jekyll & Hyde), they all fit the same gothic horror milieu, they're all about equal in terms of supernatural power, and they're all iconic in their own way. It's a good foundation to build off of.

Now that we know what we're working with, let's move onto the second question. Which is two questions actually. What is our setting and what is our tone? This is important, because setting and tone will establish the Dark Universe in the minds of the audience and if done right will help them differentiate it from other projects. Besides the familiar logo and titles, it'll make people go "Yep, that's a Dark Universe movie". It's like how you know a Marvel movie will offer colorful superheroes trading banter in a light tone, even when things get heavier. So what is the Dark Universe's setting and tone?

If these movies don't look like Ravenloft,
You're doing it wrong.

Setting is easy, these should be period movies. This is for a couple of reasons. One, it plays into what the brand is already known for. People think Universal Monsters, they think older black & white movies that take place in 1800s Transylvania. People still use torches, not flashlights, the villagers are superstitious, and stuff like castles, carriages, and incorrect notions of what electricity does to dead bodies are still around. Second, it makes the unreality of everything more palatable. This is why Marvel started with Iron Man, a pretty simple concept (robot suit) people could easily grasp and worked their way up to talking space raccoons. By setting everything in the past, an environment the audience is already one step removed from, it helps with the suspension of disbelief when more supernatural elements are introduced. Three, it puts the monsters in context. Iconic they may be, but any horror story loses some of its impact the further removed from the context it was created in it becomes. By placing these characters created back at the turn of the century in that time period, filmmakers can more easily tap into what made them frightening and memorable in the first place. Finally, it's just very distinctive. With the exception of a few singular movies, most of the cinematic universes I mentioned above are set in contemporary or near-contemporary times. By planting the Dark Universe in a period setting, we set it apart as a unique part of the brand.

The matter of tone is somewhat more difficult than setting. This is one of the things that really doomed the 2017 Mummy. That film couldn't decide if it was a horror movie, an action movie with horror elements, or a superhero-style adventure movie. It also wasn't sure whether it wanted to be dark and menacing or light and jokey. Without that clarity, and on top of all the other problems, the movie couldn't distinguish itself or the Dark Universe. So what tone should we go for? Personally, I think the films should aim for something similar to the Wesley Snipes Blade trilogy, Guillermo Del Toro's two Hellboy movies, or even the recent Devilman Crybaby anime. Though without the gore and nudity of that last one. A tone very much in the vein of Horror Adventure like those, but with a stronger emphasis on the horror elements. Basically, the scary stuff should always be presented as straight and scary as possible, there should never be an equivalent of Batman telling Aquaman "I hear you talk to fish", but things are light enough that we can still crack a few jokes and have some romance. A little darker than the Marvel movies, but not grimdark.

Follow this guy's lead.
(Art by Mike Mignola)

On the note of gore and nudity, what kind of rating should we aim for? I'd say PG-13, but leaning closer to the R end of the spectrum. These are Horror movies at heart after all. Now the PG-13 horror film is justifiably maligned, but the thing about the classic Universal Monster movies is that they didn't really have much in the way of gore or outright sexuality. It was all about atmosphere and inference, subtext over text. Partly that was because of Hollywood censorship at the time, but it's an also a way to get audiences who are usually put off by Horror movies into the theater. That's not to say we have no blood at all though, we just measure it in drips not gallons. Take a cue from the early Hammer movies. Plus, while hardcore Horror fans would love an R-rating, that's a more niche audience and the Dark Universe is a big budget franchise. For characters that need to get licensed into toys and t-shirts, PG-13 works better.

Now that we've got the basics out of the way we can actually move on to building the world of the Dark Universe. In Part Two, we'll figure out what the overarching story of the franchise will be, who some of the major characters are, and starting building out some of the individual films. Join me then, won't you dear readers?