After the star-powered Dark Universe experiment failed spectacularly at the first hurdle, it looks like Universal have finally managed to figure out how to get their classic monsters to appeal to modern audiences. The studio are now focusing on choosing the best filmmakers for the material, an approach that has already reaped huge rewards with The Invisible Man.
By teaming up with genre specialists Blumhouse and horror veteran Leigh Whannell, The Invisible Man scored strong reviews from critics and topped the domestic box office last weekend, and is already turning a huge profit with the $7 million flick earning over $50 million globally. To put things into perspective, the movie’s opening weekend brought in just $1.4 million less than Tom Cruise’s The Mummy, which cost over twenty times as much to produce.
Blumhouse chief Jason Blum has already said in the past that he would be happy to take over the Dark Universe, and last week admitted that he’d be more than willing to tackle some more of the Universal Monsters. In a recent interview, he went one step further though and singled out a new Frankenstein movie as something that he’d love to become involved with.
“I’d love to to do Frankenstein. I’ve tasked our filmmakers with trying to figure out just straight Frankenstein. Again, I don’t know if someone else is doing it, I don’t know anything about it, but I would love to try, and I’m waiting for a great idea. The Invisible Man, I agree, the best ideas feel like, ‘My gosh, it’s so obvious, why didn’t that happen before?’. If we could come up with something as good for Frankenstein, I’d love to try that.”
A new take on Frankenstein was announced to be in development in November, ironically with The Invisible Man director Leigh Whannell’s friend and Saw co-creator James Wan set to produce, while we reported last week that Universal were eying Tom Hardy for a faithful, period-set adaptation of the novel, although it isn’t clear if any of these three projects are connected.
Following the success of The Invisible Man and Whannell’s freshly-signed two year first-look deal with Blumhouse, they likely have free reign to pick whatever character they want for their next team-up, and following Blum’s comments, it appears as though Frankenstein is at the top of the wish-list.
