Universal's CLASSIC MONSTERS Thread

Rhedosaurus wrote:

*Grumpy Sigh*

Universal is going forward with Bride Of Frankenstein in the hopes that it will revive the Dark Universe.

Universal really has no clue what they what to do. How many times can you start a franchise/cinematic universe that few people want?

Even if this doesn't lead to a cinematic universe and just exists as its own standalone entity (more akin to Wonder Woman), The Bride of Frankenstein is such a quintessentially 30s film that trying to recreate that in a modern setting is folly. If Condon were to recreate the 1930s setting, it'd be at best a pretty to look at but otherwise lackluster film experience.

The other bizarre thing about The Mummy (2017) is that it feels incredibly out of place in the midst of films like Get Out, Split and It, these low to medium budgeted horror films that scared people in abundance and made their money back many times over. Two of those are from Universal's own Blumhouse, so it's not like they don't have the right sorts of people who could create masterful, atmospheric horror films that raise the profile of the genre. If The Mummy was more like those films and nothing like a superhero actioner, who knows where they'd be right now.

BarrytheOnyx wrote:

Rhedosaurus wrote:

*Grumpy Sigh*

Universal is going forward with Bride Of Frankenstein in the hopes that it will revive the Dark Universe.

Universal really has no clue what they what to do. How many times can you start a franchise/cinematic universe that few people want?

Even if this doesn't lead to a cinematic universe and just exists as its own standalone entity (more akin to Wonder Woman), The Bride of Frankenstein is such a quintessentially 30s film that trying to recreate that in a modern setting is folly. If Condon were to recreate the 1930s setting, it'd be at best a pretty to look at but otherwise lackluster film experience.

I still think that other then Dracula, who's a real life person, that all of Universal's monsters are simply too outdated for modern times for most directors-I.E. Anybody not named Guillermo del Toro-to pull off.

Ed Solomon, the writer of the Invisible Man movie, has quit.

Does ANYBODY want this franchise/cinematic universe anymore?! Who wants this?! Not even the DCEU had this many problems and failures and whatever else that was bad like this...abomination.

Shame. The Invisible Man, and Creature were like the two movies I was actually looking forward to from these reboots.

CT-1138 wrote:

Shame. The Invisible Man, and Creature were like the two movies I was actually looking forward to from these reboots.

Same. And with proper treatment they could be done well, on smaller budgets.

And stick true to the roots of the characters. None of this silly action packed globe trotting.

Troyal1 wrote:

CT-1138 wrote:

Shame. The Invisible Man, and Creature were like the two movies I was actually looking forward to from these reboots.

Same. And with proper treatment they could be done well, on smaller budgets.

And stick true to the roots of the characters. None of this silly action packed globe trotting.

I really liked Invisible Man as a concept. Probably the most human of the universal monsters after all. The question posed to the reader being that would you do the same things he did if you had that power.

Universal still refuses to let the Dark Universe via developing more movies for it.

WHY. WON'T. THEY. LET. THIS. GOOOOOOOOOOOO?! Very few people wanted this and now, NOBODY wants this anymore!

WHHHYYYYYYYYYY?!

I'm just as baffled by this as well. Last year's "Mummy" movie was such a failure on every front that nobody will associate the Dark Universe with quality and will shun any new movie bearing that logo. Even if by some miracle they manage to make a film of actual quality, and doesn't rely on action, CGI and obnoxious attempts to copy Marvel, it won't do well at the box office because of the taint that Tom Cruise's Mummy left behind.

Ironically, the team developing a new iteration of the Universal Monsters would do well to look at the upcoming entree in Universal's A-list blockbuster series, Fallen Kingdom, as Bayona appears to have steeped the second half of that film in rich Gothic imagery, luscious cinematography and intense atmosphere. All vital components for the Universal Monster classics of old.

Paul Feig and Universal’s Monster Movie ‘Dark Army’ Will Reportedly Include Classic Universal Monsters!
https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3583279/paul-feig-universals-monster-movie-dark-army-will-reportedly-include-classic-universal-monsters/

Dead2009 wrote:

Paul Feig and Universal’s Monster Movie ‘Dark Army’ Will Reportedly Include Classic Universal Monsters!
https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3583279/paul-feig-universals-monster-movie-dark-army-will-reportedly-include-classic-universal-monsters/

So not only is Universal trying this AGAIN, but they are doing this with a director who can't make good movies that aren't comedies/spoofs and needlessly turned the Ghostbusters franchise into a culture war battlefield?!

What is Universal thinking?!

Rhedo stop with this constant and pervasive negativity and cynicism. It is not healthy and I know I'm not the only one to find it annoyingly tiresome. If you don't have anything nice or constructive to say then maybe you should not say anything at all.

TyrannosaurTJ wrote:

Rhedo stop with this constant and pervasive negativity and cynicism. It is not healthy and I know I'm not the only one to find it annoyingly tiresome. If you don't have anything nice or constructive to say then maybe you should not say anything at all.

Eh, to be fair, the Universal Monsterverse was a disaster from the beginning.

But speaking of Universal Classic Monsters, Trick or Treat Studios has gotten the license for them from Universal, and will be reproducing the classic Don Post Studios masks under the direction of Don Post Jr! These masks are some of the most highly sought after Halloween masks produced in the '60s to the '80s.

CT-1138 wrote:

TyrannosaurTJ wrote:

Rhedo stop with this constant and pervasive negativity and cynicism. It is not healthy and I know I'm not the only one to find it annoyingly tiresome. If you don't have anything nice or constructive to say then maybe you should not say anything at all.

Eh, to be fair, the Universal Monsterverse was a disaster from the beginning.

I'm just sick of Rhedo running people off with his BS here. He only posts negative BS persistently I might add.

As to the Monsterverse already being a disaster, that is fair I admit, yeah. I think what the Dark Universe stuff could use a competent creative team/direction behind it laying it out and guiding it together. Fiege might be able to pull it off I admit, but I think that if it flops this time Uni might retire the property for the interim and focus on other franchises. I know it's kind of all up in the air with the future of the Jurassic movies after 2021 though so they might be exploring this as a side option in case the Jurassic series is decided to conclude after JP6/JW3.

I think the biggest problem with the Monsterverse is how old the property is and the strong need to modernize it in order to make it relevant today.

TyrannosaurTJ wrote:

CT-1138 wrote:

TyrannosaurTJ wrote:

Rhedo stop with this constant and pervasive negativity and cynicism. It is not healthy and I know I'm not the only one to find it annoyingly tiresome. If you don't have anything nice or constructive to say then maybe you should not say anything at all.

Eh, to be fair, the Universal Monsterverse was a disaster from the beginning.

I'm just sick of Rhedo running people off with his BS here. He only posts negative BS persistently I might add.

As to the Monsterverse already being a disaster, that is fair I admit, yeah. I think what the Dark Universe stuff could use a competent creative team/direction behind it laying it out and guiding it together. Fiege might be able to pull it off I admit, but I think that if it flops this time Uni might retire the property for the interim and focus on other franchises. I know it's kind of all up in the air with the future of the Jurassic movies after 2021 though so they might be exploring this as a side option in case the Jurassic series is decided to conclude after JP6/JW3.

I think the biggest problem with the Monsterverse is how old the property is and the strong need to modernize it in order to make it relevant today.

The problem with Cruise's The Mummy was that they tried to turn horror movies into action flicks. Cruise is pretty much the same bum in every movie he's in, and the writers were clearly trying to craft a MI movie out of a horror film. As I said a long time ago, nobody goes to a Mummy movie to see a sexy corpse walking down the street shattering windows and conjuring massive storms. They want this...


Or, in 1999...


Walking corpses are scary... when they LOOK scary. A sexy half naked human woman isn't scary, no matter how much you CGI her eyes. Edgar Allan Poe once described horror as a blend of the implicit and the explicit. He said that there must be a balance between them, because too much explicit will turn the audience away, and too much implicit won't excite them. The Tom Cruise Mummy movie was too much implicit and not enough explicit. It just wasn't scary.

Universal needs to go back to the drawing board, and remember what The Wolfman, Dracula, The Mummy, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Invisible Man, Frankenstein, and the pantheon of other horror characters they created meant to audiences in the '30s, '40s, and '50s. They were fear. They inspired a generation of fear in audiences. And then Hammer Horror did it all over again in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. These characters waned in the '80s, making way for Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface, and Chucky: a new pantheon of horror. But I refuse to believe classic horror characters are no longer relevant. They ARE relevant IF they are scary. That's the key here. Without the fear, Frankenstein is just a big green dummy, Dracula sparkles, and The Invisible Man is just a joke. Look at what Joe Johnston did with "The Wolfman" in 2010. Say what you will about it, but at least it's scary. If makes you fear the dark mists of the moors where beasts lurk, waiting to rip out your liver.

Well that is my problem with Tom Cruise as an actor, any role he plays he's just himself basically playing as himself and responding under a different name. Which that is not really acting so much as it is just playing dress up and being like a Gary Stu type character. Cruise as a person though I find him to be very vain as an individual and that's very off-putting to me too.

Edgar Allen Poe was definitely onto something with that detail as well with horror being a blend of the implicit and explicit and needing a balance. I think a good case of that are some of the Romero zombie films doing both of those things. So I agree with that 100%. Same with what you said about Universal going back to the drawing board with looking at what the properties meant to the audience. I think one thing I'd like note about those old monster movies is that there's a certain romanticism with people rooting for the monster in them and that's what is missing in this current swath of remakes they're doing. People are too focused on making them realistic by making them dark and gritty and those films weren't that. They were a social commentary on society at points, but they did a good job of getting people to empathize with the monsters. I mean even in the 80s horror films people did root for Michael, Freddy, or Jason as well at times too. In a way Universal should try to go back to that romanticism idea with it to a point and work on building up the relevance to today. Maybe Fiege can do it, or maybe he can't though I don't see the harm in trying.

TyrannosaurTJ wrote:

CT-1138 wrote:

TyrannosaurTJ wrote:

Rhedo stop with this constant and pervasive negativity and cynicism.

Eh, to be fair, the Universal Monsterverse was a disaster from the beginning.

As to the Monsterverse already being a disaster, that is fair I admit, yeah.

So wait, you accuse me of being too negative for asking how this can work when it failed twice, and then you admit that Uni's Monsterverse was a disaster which in turn, proves me right?

Makes sense to me.

Remember guys, let's keep things civil and on topic.

Cheers.

Rhedosaurus wrote:

TyrannosaurTJ wrote:

CT-1138 wrote:

TyrannosaurTJ wrote:

Rhedo stop with this constant and pervasive negativity and cynicism.

Eh, to be fair, the Universal Monsterverse was a disaster from the beginning.

As to the Monsterverse already being a disaster, that is fair I admit, yeah.

So wait, you accuse me of being too negative for asking how this can work when it failed twice, and then you admit that Uni's Monsterverse was a disaster which in turn, proves me right?

Makes sense to me.

You know what makes sense to me and I've seen time and time again here? I feel that often you're never constructive with your hate and it is a jumbled mess of aimless complaining either because it is new and different or panders to certain sensitivities that socially you take and have issues with. There's been a long standing trend of film-goer dissatisfaction and jaded behavior that comes from the fact it's been socially acceptable and a subject of popularity even to hate on things for the simple fact they're new or different and not be constructive with criticisms about such things. If you like to see the same old thing again and again with nothing changing then I would recommend you focus on the original thing as it is static and never ever changes. You don't need to be hijacking every single thread here with your jaded behavior and negativity when the recently released stuff shows that it is new and different as it tries to tell a new story set in the universe of the subject. It's a logical and viable solution to this situation here, you get what you want and the people here don't have to get chased off by this perpetual jaded outlook of yours. We can actually look forward to things and define our own points of why it is or isn't good and talk about it in a way that simply goes beyond this aimless griping and complaining that is cyclic and tiresome.

My secret bonus here is that maybe if you actually stopped complaining long enough about literally everything it might help pull your head out of the negative crap enough for a happier mindset to possibly assert itself. Then again for most that requires a lot of soul searching of the subject and changing your other related behaviors altogether with some general honesty with yourself about which behaviors you possess that are toxic to yourself and to others. Either way I can only hope it's enough to cause a positive change within you though. Then again given your insistence to sit here again and again and speak negatively about everything I think you're very happy and otherwise content with your role of being the perpetual naysayer windbag type in these parts that continually runs everybody off that just happens to feel a minuscule level differently about the particular subject compared to you. I know in the past anybody with that kind of mindset I would not hesitate to smash the person with a ban hammer as it can and does chase people off. Often I would compare it to the loss of one over the loss of many and I'd always prefer to lose the one before they could make the many happen.  I understood that my constant confronting it directly instead of handling it covertly was 90% of my problem with people. I also admit that sometimes I just caused the argument or forced the issue publicly so I could use it as a way to accelerate the situation and restore order especially when I always knew the end result was going to be they would be banned because they just couldn't quite pull their head from the nether regions of their body, recognize what they were doing, and bother to pull themselves out of their mental toxic sewage prison. I knew if I did pander to someone, which I would at times, there would also come a time when they would disappoint me with this otherwise small minded behavior that you're exhibiting. At the point of the end of everything I just stopped caring and trying to divert the bus from going over the cliff and I let the bus simply do it's own thing.

In the end I have never seen you make a positive post once about how you look forward to something or even that you are open for the thing to challenge your altogether negative outlook and defy your negative expectations. I admit, there's probably examples of that I may have missed or overlooked due either to human error or what have you here. So I'll say that maybe that's not always the case though 100% of the time. Most of your aimless grumbling and complaining though is because the subject has too much of a social commentary, political commentary, or pandering to "liberal" sensitivities that you dressed that as being unintelligent. You often will and have placed ridiculous levels of expectations on the particular media to meet or constantly change them when they are met to make it otherwise impossible for you to have a positive feeling about anything. Why you insist on making yourself in perpetual state of misery I can never really understand. I would want to remove that misery from my life in any way possible instead of following through with the backward belief that "if I ain't happy, nobody is gonna be happy" which itself is toxic and a classic case of narcissism. So go ahead, by all means continue doing what you do here and enslave yourself to your negativity with the habits and predictability or actually rationalize out here and realize there's more life than perpetually hating everything. I know either way I'm tired of seeing you weaponize it and run people off who seriously want to discuss things without having to deal with this cyclic and circular complaining that you are constantly demonstrating infinitely to the point of ad nauseum.

Seriously, guys. Enough. Back on topic now.

Apologies to the moderation and administration staff here.

I still wonder how much longer Universal can go to this well when nobody wants the water from it. Not after Draclua: Untold and The Mummy 2017.

James Wan Assembling New Take on “Frankenstein”
https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3594869/james-wan-assembling-new-take-frankenstein/

Dracula’s Henchman ‘Renfield’ Getting His Own Film at Universal
https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3594859/draculas-henchmen-renfield-getting-film-universal/

Elizabeth Banks will direct an 'Invisible Woman' movie for Universal.

Her Charlie's Angels remake bombed hard, she blamed sexism for the reason, and yet she's been given this project?