The reaction to last month’s unveiling of Universal’s Dark Universe plans was underwhelming, to say the least — and now poor reviews for The Mummy are lending fuel to the fire that perhaps a shared universe of monsters isn’t such a great idea.
That line of thinking is understandable. Hollywood has caught shared universe fever, with everything from Transformers to King Kong and Godzilla getting their own. But even after a misfire like The Mummy, Dark Universe still has serious potential to not only be good, but to be great.
To understand why, first you have to look back to the origins of the universe.
In 1923, with Wallace Worsley’s silent film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the original Universal Monsters universe was born. The film was utterly revolutionary. Reports are that it cost upwards of $1 million, a budget unheard of at the time. That was followed in 1925, by one of the most iconic films of the silent era, The Phantom of the Opera, which featured a shocking reveal of the Phantom’s face — without his mask — an image that instantly became engrained in cinema history. (See below.)
Following the success of The Phantom of the Opera, Universal was off to the races. By the 1930s, Universal was pumping out several of these films a year. Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, and The Wolf Man were all massive successes. Each of these characters had multiple sequels, spin-off and crossover films. The demand was rampant, and Universal’s vision was seemingly boundless. The cinematic universe thrived for four decades, before finally puttering out and ending in 1960. Universal had a grand vision not seen again until the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The Mummy, admittedly, isn’t a great start to the new universe. It came in with a dismal No. 2 showing at the domestic box office behind Wonder Woman,…
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