Last week I shared a box office prediction post that said Universal's Dark Universe kick-off flick THE MUMMY, starring Tom Cruise was only set to make about $30M this past weekend. Turns out the film did (slightly) better than that and scored $32M.
As I said in that post and will say again here, that may not seem like a small chunk of change, but when you consider that even THE SCORPION KING opened to a higher number than this MUMMY entry, you know the Dark Universe may be in trouble.
Speaking of which AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON director John Landis recently sat down with Movie News and had a conversation about the Dark Universe. He says the reason the film aren't going to work is that Universal has no respect for the monsters that inhabit the films.
A Strong statement considering we haven't seen but one Dark Universe flick yet, but all the same the man kinda knows what he's talking about when it comes to movie monsters, so you can check out his comments below and decide for yourself if you agree with the man or not.
John Landis on Universal's Dark Universe:
First of all, it's not a new idea.
If you remember with Universal back in the '40s, once they made all their classics, they started cross-pollinating. House of Dracula, House of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets The Wolf-Man – you know what they used to call those? Monster rallies! (laugh) And then of course, one of the great ironies is what was considered… OK – it's over now!… was Abbot & Costello Meets Frankenstein, which is actually a very funny movie and very respectful of the monsters. I think, y'know, maybe that's one of the problems with Universal's Dark Universe is that it isn't respectful of the monsters.
Y'know, when they want to reinvent and sometimes it works great – look at David Cronenberg's The Fly or John Carpenter's The Thing. It can be done.
Well, there you have it, folks. Seems like the man behind one of the most classic werewolf movies ever doesn't think Universal is handling their new shared universe of flicks any better than the rest of us.
What do you make of Universal's Dark Universe and John Landis' comments? Did YOU see THE MUMMY in theaters this past weekend? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram!
THE MUMMY is now playing in theaters. Check out Eric's review HERE.
THE MUMMY (1999) co-starred Rachel Weisz