Shing light on Universal's Dark Universe

I'm a massive fan of Universal's  horror movies of the 30's and 40's - those halcyon days when Karloff, Lugosi and Chaney ruled the silver screen. And it was dissapointing when last year's The Mummy,starring that annoying hobbit Tom Cruise, intended to kick start the monster series again under the Universal Dark Universe banner flopped.

This was not the first time that Universal have tried to kick start their famous monsters for a modern audience - way back in 2014 the studio released, Dracula Untold but that too went belly up at the box office.

It seemed that Universal's monsters would remain a fond memory - though there may be hope for Dark Universe after all - this past week the  artist, Robert Vargas  posted on his Instragram account.


"Great meeting this morning with the amazing #DarkUniverse team. Thank you #Universal Exec, Holly Goline and Crash for the hospitality. Looking forward to contributing to the Universal Pictures legacy with my work. Monster things in the works ;) Stay tuned!"

So are Universal still interested in getting their shared universe series off the ground?

 It certainly sounds like Universal is still trying to get their monster-fueled franchise up and running. The nascent cinematic universe was slated to kick off with The Mummy in 2017, but the movie was a critical and commercial dud. It was reported recently that Universal would try to salvage Dark Universe with a movie based on arguably their finest moment, the Bride of Frankenstein.

I do hope that Universal stick with their plans for the Dark Universe. I don’t think having these monster movies star Hollywood’s A-listers was the right way to go. These monsters have persevered for decades now on the popularity of their characters alone. Fuck, Tom Cruise and cast  unknown names – that's largely what Marvel did with their cinematic universe. People like Tom Cruise bring baggage with them - he's no Jack Reacher and he's nowhere near Boris Karloff.