Universal Announces Classic Monster Shared Universe

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As a long time fan of shared universes and continuity, there’s a big part of me that wonder show this moment of popularity for those things will look once it’s passed into history.  Obviously, that’s assuming any trend can truly pass away anymore instead of simply going into extended hibernation, but by the same token, the young adult film boom of the mid-2010s seems to have thoroughly wound down, so I guess we’ll see.  

One thing seems fairly sure, most of the shared universes of the day will probably be looked back on with awkward disinterest or surprise, and none among them will garner such a response the same way I suspect the Universal Movie Monster-Verse will. 

In case you hadn’t heard, Universal has decided to revive the brands on their classic monster movies of the ‘30s and ‘40s to act as a new shared universe, which makes sense given the original films also acted as a shared universe.  These new films will be kicked off by this summer’s The Mummy and are being managed by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman- two of the biggest hacks working in Hollywood right now behind such atrocities as Transformers, Amazing Spider-Man 2, and the worst parts of the Star Trek reboot.  

Previously Universal had done a good job keeping this whole idea out of focus but as The Mummy nears and they start worrying about getting the hype machine going they’ve produce a big publicity spread to get people like me talking about it so, yeah; let’s talk about Universal’s Dark Universe.  

The Mummy Trailer Breakdown

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Let’s talk for a second about “cinematic universes.”  The idea of cinematic universes is a pretty new concept for most general audiences, but it actually finds its origins with the so-called Universal Monster Cycle.  

This was a collection of films produced in the ‘30s and ‘40s by Universal Studios and are considered the first major horror hits of the talking picture era.  Basically, our universally held conceptions of Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolfman all come from these movies, and they all ended up sharing continuity with each other. 

The big reason for this was that aside from being owned by the same studio, each of the monster movies had a unique style while still fitting together as a cohesive whole.  That’s always been the secret of the cinematic universe, and now, 85 years later, Universal seems to have forgotten it as they return to this particular well with 2017’s The Mummy.