Man, the rollout to Universal's Dark Universe franchise of movies got off to a botched start, didn't it? Remember, they rolled out that image showing off the A-list stars they had assembled for their bunch of monster movie. You can see it above and even if you didn't like The Mummy very much that photo should have you thinking all would be okay. But it's not okay. The Mummy failed to impress, and Universal has struggled to move ahead on what was supposed to be next, Bride of Frankenstein, which was shelved as they try to convince Angelina Jolie or Gal Gadot to star in it.
Well, that may not be enough. THR reports Dark Universe masterminds Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan have departed for greener pastures. Kurtzman, who directed The Mummy but has long been affiliated with the Star Trek universe, is busy with Star Trek Discovery. Morgan has written every movie in the Fast & Furious franchise and will be sticking with that as it expands to a full-blown cinematic universe.
So where does that leave Dark Universe? Well, Universal hasn't given up yet and are said to be eyeing “high-profile filmmakers or producers,” such as Blumhouse's Jason Blum (king of low-budget horror/thrillers like Get Out), to hand the keys to. They may ditch the connectivity approach entirely and focus on standalone horrors featuring their library of classic monsters.
And that may be the best idea. I don't know if it was the right idea to try and turn characters such as the Mummy, Frankenstein, and Invisible Man (which would've starred Johnny Depp) into blockbuster action movies. It may have worked for The Mummy back in the '90s but those were also geared as family-friendly whereas these weren't. I'd pass all of that intellectual property over to Blum and tell him to work his horror magic.
