The Dark Universe is starting to splinter with Bride of Frankenstein
Never fear, people. Director Bill Condon says that his remake of the beloved 1935 horror film is not connected to The Mummy or the Dark Universe.
Are you a horror fan who’s also pop culture literate enough to know that The Mummy flopped hard? Then we have some good news for you! Bill Condon wants to make good movies and isn’t really concerned about things like sequels, prequels, or shared universes.
The live-action Beauty and the Beast director is attached to helm the upcoming remake of Bride of Frankenstein. Which is technically part of Universal’s Dark Universe, the movie franchise that supposedly kicked off with June’s The Mummy. Before it lost $95 million, the Tom Cruise vehicle was originally conceived as a tentpole for a series of rebooted horror and sci-fi classics like Dracula, The Wolfman, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, and The Invisible Man.
Once The Mummy was pronounced DOA, there was doubt about whether the Dark Universe franchise would still be a thing. It is, but, based on an interview with Collider, Condon could not care less about reinforcing the brand.
Condon and the Dark Universe brand
"“What I’m doing is 100 percent making a really good monster movie. It has nothing to do with anything else. Nothing. Zero.”"
We’re guessing that Condon is contractually obligated to make Bride of Frankenstein at least a little bit (say, five percent?) related to the Dark Universe. But his statement to Collider is pretty definitive. He sees this project as a film, not just another installment in a never-ending money machine. Whether Condon can actually distance himself from the shared universe and/or The Mummy remains to be seen, but his specific vision for the film is intriguing.
For one, it seems that screenwriter David Koepp–who, for the record, also co-wrote The Mummy–is playing with the gender dynamics of the original movie. Condon said:
"“This is Eve before Adam, the bride comes first. So in its own way — you know, we all know the Bride only exists for 10 minutes in the [James] Whale movie; she’s there and the movie’s over. So I keep thinking [it’s], in a way, at least a tribute to what Whale might have done if he’d made a third Frankenstein movie and he’d done it in the 21st Century.”"
Source material and Condon’s work
Another good sign? Condon is obviously a fan of the source material. With Dreamgirls, Beauty and the Beast, and the final two Twilight movies under his belt, he knows a thing or two about satisfying sky-high fan expectations:
"“[Bride of Frankenstein] is obviously in the pantheon for so many people and I’m one of them. I love that film so much. So I do feel again that responsibility I felt to Dreamgirls, the one I felt to Beauty and the Beast, I feel the same response to what Whale created.”"
So, you could say we’re cautiously optimistic about the new Bride of Frankenstein. If nothing else, the renewed discussion around it has given us a crowd-pleaser of a Halloween costume idea.
Related Story: The Mummy was a failure, but Universal’s Dark Universe will continue
Bride of Frankenstein is set to begin production in February. Javier Bardem is reportedly attached to play the Monster. So far there is no word on who will portray the Bride. The film is scheduled to hit theaters February 14, 2019.