The Dark Universe
The writing was on the wall when Guillermo del Toro chose not to take the reins of the Dark Universe. When the modern day master of horror and fantasy isn’t interested in leading the classic Universal Monsters in the 21st century, something must be seriously wrong.
Well, The Mummy pretty much ensured that the franchise lasted for less than a whole calendar year. It didn’t exactly electrify the box office, critics, or audiences who all saw this as another Tom Cruise vehicle for him to be, um, Tom Cruise. How did anyone not see this coming?
It’s unfortunate, too, since the concept of the Dark Universe was actually quite exciting – who wouldn’t want to see these classic monsters return to action? It was an ambitious project – to say the least – but it required better visionaries to execute it.
G.I. Joe
Yo, Joe! Or maybe not. It’s crazy to think that G.I. Joe has been around since 1963, but its first live-action film only arrived in 2009. While G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra didn’t exactly reinvigorate the interest in the property, it still did enough to delight older fans and merit a sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation.
What the sequel did, though, was crap on everything the first film did right and turn this into another movie for Dwayne Johnson to flex his muscles and guns. It was a dumpster fire – and we’re not surprised that most of the original cast members didn’t want to return for this abortion.
A third film was actually planned, but thankfully someone saw it as a terrible idea, choosing to reboot the series instead. It was a wise decision.