How The Universal Monsters Copied The DCEU's Best Trick
Considered to be the original cinematic universe for many, the Universal Monsters helped to pave the way for modern interconnected superhero universes series. As writers tried to find where the Monsters' fit in modern cinema, it makes sense that they looked to a franchise like the DC Expanded Universe. However, the rebirth of the Dark Universe didn’t happen in two shakes of a wolfman’s tail. Instead, it happened after two different kinds of horror tales attempted to reboot the studio's legacy. Reimaginings of Universal’s pantheon of horror is nothing new, but a change in strategy and a different direction is what resurrected the old school ghouls for a new generation.
The Universal Monsters are still considered classics, including Dracula, The Bride of Frankenstein, and The Wolfman, which were genre-defining movies. However, as time went on, horror evolved in cinema, and the monsters attempted to change with them. Universal tried to make their creature features relevant again with the Dark Universe, a cinematic reimagining of their horror icons for modern audiences that were set to feature big name stars, superhero-style storytelling, and a single universe for them to share.
Seemingly created with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s success and formula in mind, the Dark Universe reimagined their stars as horror-themed superheroes. However, after two failed launches of their new flagship franchise, Universal needed a new strategy and ironically became more like the DCEU than the MCU. By focusing on smaller projects and deviating from their Synderverse equivalent, they finally found the secret to the DC’s second wind.
When the DCEU began, it similarly found trouble chasing Marvel’s success as it attempted to build its shared universe in less than half the time. Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice and Justice League didn’t reach the studio's predicted critical success. Ultimately, WB abandoned their idea of Zack Synder’s universe as the DCEU’s focal point. The Dark Universe planned to begin with Dracula Untold, and when it failed to meet expectations, they tried again with The Mummy, which also never reached the franchise-launching success they were seeking. Not unlike DC, which canceled numerous projects such as a Batman film starring Ben Affleck and Joe Manganiello, Universal ended up cutting and reimagining most of their films. A Javier Bardem Frankenstein project was reconsidered, and Dark Army was intended to be a Justice League-style crossover for the Dark Universe. The characters were classic, and the potential was there, but forcing them together didn’t work for DC or Universal.
Moving forward, DC embraced smaller character-centric stories and ambitious director-lead projects. Shazam!, Joker, and James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad are each examples of how Warner Bros. fixed the DCEU’s biggest problems, and when it came to the Universal Monsters, it was the same strategy that brought them back from a lackluster execution. Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, a small-scale sci-fi thriller, proved to resonate with modern audiences with its socially relevant commentary, pulse-pounding moments of dread, and creative reimagining of a classic. It was a humble deviation from the original Dark Universe which inspired similar projects such as Renfield, a new take on Dracula, and The Invisible Woman, a spin-off inspired by Whannell’s movie. Like DC, Universal discovered it’s not always the scale of the story that determines success, but how it’s told and who’s telling it.
The Universal Monsters might have pioneered the concept of a shared cinematic universe, but they didn't require it to survive. It was a realization made by both the DCEU and the Dark Universe that bigger isn’t always better which helped them find the success that superheroes had in movies.