On paper, a leather-clad hybrid of action and horror that pits vampires against werewolves in an eternal battle the general population knows nothing about sounds awesome, but did the Underworld franchise make the most of the tools it had at its disposal?
That’s the crux of the latest unlikely debate to sweep the internet, and both sides of the divide have plenty to chew on. The Kate Beckinsale-led series was a huge commercial success after earning a combined total of $539 million at the box office across five films, but it would also be fair to say that none of the installments were held in anything approximating critical esteem.
The opener remains the best-reviewed of the bunch with a mere 31 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, with the four sequels ranging from 17 to 29 percent on the aggregation site. However, Underworld cultivated a sizeable fanbase (as evidenced by the property’s regularly impressive performance on streaming), even if insane-sounding crossovers with I, Frankenstein, Blade, and Resident Evil all ended up being canned.
As recently as last year, Beckinsale admitted she wasn’t against the idea of reprising her role as Selene, and it’s not as if Hollywood is averse to the idea of dusting off a lucrative IP and throwing it back onto the screen without a care in the world. The evidence shows that Underworld has plenty of supporters who admire the effort put into the lore and world-building, even if they’d also be the first to admit that the end product was hardly the best it could have been.