Universal had big plans for their Dark Universe franchise, but the failure of THE MUMMY caused everything to come crashing down. Thankfully, the Universal Monsters will still live to terrorize audiences as the studio later announced that they would be charting a new course away from an interconnected universe and instead focus on bringing in creative directors with distinctive visions for the classic monsters. The first of those movies will be THE INVISIBLE MAN which will be written and directed by Leigh Whannell (UPGRADE).
Elisabeth Moss (US) will star in the film and now Deadline has reported that Storm Reid (A WRINKLE IN TIME) will join her. Along with the news of this casting comes a few fresh details about the film, which is set to follow Cecilia (Moss) as she receives the news of the suicide of her abusive ex-boyfriend. She begins rebuilding her life for the better, but her sense of reality is put into question when she begins to suspect her deceased lover is not actually dead. Storm Reid will play Sydney, a young woman who picks up the maternal slack with her mother gone. She's very capable and mature for her age as well as an outgoing lover of fashion who aspires to see the world. Although she initially likes having Cecilia around as a role model, she soon grows mistrustful of her when strange things begin to happen around the house. Production is expected to kick off in Australia later this year.
You shouldn't expect THE INVISIBLE MAN to become some big-budget blockbuster this time around, as Blumhouse founder and CEO Jason Blum has said that it will definitely be a lower budget movie. "It’s not dependent on special effects, CGI, stunts. It’s super character-driven, it’s really compelling, it’s trilling, it’s edgy, it feels new," Blum teased. "Those were all things that felt like they fit with what our company does. And it happened to be an Invisible Man story, so it checked both boxes. And we responded to it because I think Leigh is just an A+ director." Blum estimated that the budget will likely fall somewhere between $5 and $10 million. As a huge fan of the Universal Monsters, I think this is a much better approach than the Dark Universe concept. These characters don't need giant budgets or to become superheroes, and keeping the budget on a smaller scale will allow for more experimentation.