Thanks for linking those, Grifman, but that’s a pretty lukewarm excuse for a commitment, considering it’s coming from their distribution guy. Of course he’s going to say that when asked about the abysmal box office.
The more important barometer will be what we hear from Universal’s production folks. For instance, if we hear that Angelina Jolie is definitely onboard with Bride of Frankenstein, then I’ll believe they’re still throwing money at the franchise. Until then, I fully expect it will be scaled down at best, and let go at worst. Everyone brace yourselves for Cara Delevingne or Mila Kunis as our next Bride of Frankenstein!
You wanted to know, I posted. I don’t really care, I didn’t see the movie and I think the DU is a dumb idea. I’m not going to argue with you, just posting what I read, you can take it or leave it.
[quote=“Grifman, post:142, topic:78044, full:true”]You wanted to know, I posted. I don’t really care, I didn’t see the movie and I think the DU is a dumb idea. I’m not going to argue with you, just posting what I read, you can take it or leave it.
[/quote]
Whoa, easy there. When you jump in to disagree with someone, they might actually disagree back.
But I meant it when I said thanks for posting the links. I’ve been following the response to The Mummy tanking, but I hadn’t seen the Universal distributor’s quotes. I don’t put as much stock in them as you seem to, but there’s no need to take offense.
Wow, this is a genius idea. Just take a pair of headphones into the theater with you. We already have phones in our pockets. Brilliant!
Of course, since I only currently two movies in the theater a year, this isn’t really relevant to me anymore. But boy where was this idea back in 2000-2006? It’s true that I didn’t have a smart phone back then, but I could have taken my mp3 player in there and listened to music. I could hold up to 33 minutes of music on that mp3 player.
I have an iPhone, as far as I know it is not a high powered amplifier. It’s all in the headphones. With something like these you just need to listen at a moderate volume. You don’t have to block out all sound, you just have to give yourself something to focus on and you’ll miss the dialog in the trailers.
Oops. Looks like The Bride of Frankenstein, which was supposed to be the next chapter in Universal’s “Dark Universe” of monster movies, has been delayed.
“After thoughtful consideration, Universal Pictures and director Bill Condon have decided to postpone Bride of Frankenstein,” Universal said in a statement to Deadline. “None of us want to move too quickly to meet a release date when we know this special movie needs more time to come together. Bill is a director whose enormous talent has been proven time and again, and we all look forward to continuing to work on this film together.”
So I finally saw the Mummy. After all the incredibly negative press, I was expecting this to be downright horrible. Instead, I found it to be solidly mediocre. I’m the type that will happily stop watching a movie in the middle if I’m not at least entertaining. I didn’t quit this one in the middle. In fact, I found that I liked it more than several of the recent (non-Wonder Woman) DC movies, by way of comparison.
This was better than I thought it would be. It was not, mind you, good or even close to decent. I basically had no actual expectation. It’s a rote flavor of sub-par.
How about they make an actual horror themed monster universe instead of the stupid mashing together they were planning to try and manufacture a summer blockbuster series before it actually started. Horror movies can kill it at the BO with far less investment, but no Universal was desperate to create something to compete with the MCU.
Agree with this post. I was looking forward to a few monster mashes, but the Mummy was so awful that smothering this series in its crib makes sense. How were they going to integrate monsters like the Gilman with something that can destroy cities like the Mummy? A werewolf vs something that blows up city blocks? It was just such an awful, awful decision to make the monster a giant threat like that.
This series could still work and work well, as an actual horror series, as you indicated. Just as Hammer upgraded the Universal monster movies 30 years later, the new Universal series could have done the same - with more graphic, legit scary, horror movies in a shared universe. I don’t know why they are so bad at this - maybe they just can’t get any corporate momentum for producing anything other than potentially massive movies rather than just more modestly budgeted horror movies. IT-level budget rather than Justice League level.
The thing is they are the distributor for Blumhouse who is killing it with their horror/thriller stuff. But yea the suits just want their mega franchise “cinematic universe”.
