Monster fans rejoice! Following the recent remake of The Mummy, Universal Pictures has plans to release remakes of its most famous classic horror films. They will be released over the next few years, and will include The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolf Man among others.
We already know about The Bride of Frankenstein being next at bat on February 14, 2019 with Beauty and the Beast’s Bill Condon directing from a screenplay by Jurassic Park’s David Koepp. Angelina Jolie and Javier Bardem are expected to star. And Johnny Depp has officially inked a deal to headline The Invisible Man and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is rumored to transform himself into The Wolfman.
Now Universal has announced the next round of reboots to be interwoven into the family fold with plans to produce updated versions of Dracula, The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. If you paid close attention to some of The Mummy trailers you can see what appears to be Dracula’s skull in a jar inside Dr. Jekyll’s Prodigium, and what seems to be a fin from The Creature From The Black Lagoon so at least one of these titles was anticipated, but the other pair is a pleasant surprise.
Dark Universe creative chief Alex Kurtzman confirmed the news during an interview with Fandom during The Mummy’s press tour:
“We know we’re going to do Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Phantom of the Opera, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Invisible Man. There are characters within those films that can grow and expand and maybe even spin off,” he told the site. “I think that digging into deep mythologies about monsters around the world is fair game for us, as well and connecting the monsters that we know to some surprising monsters could also be really interesting. I’d love to bring Michael Fassbender in, I’d love to bring Jennifer Lawrence in, I’d love to see Charlize Theron in there, Angelina Jolie…”
Phantom (1925) and Hunchback (1923) were two of the first horror movies Carl Laemmle ever produced for Universal, both starring “The Man Of A Thousand Faces,” the legendary Lon Chaney. They will join the previous mention films in this expanded lineup all under the Dark Universe umbrella. Whether or not Universal’s Dracula reboot or spin-off will be based on the 2014 Luke Evans film, Dracula Untold, is yet to be determined.
It sounds like Universal has taken a cue from the success of the Marvel Universe films and plans to do something similar with its horror catalog. So assuming that all these remakes are well-done, monster fans have a lot to look forward to. The Bride of Frankenstein is scheduled to open next February. There’s no word yet on release dates for any of the others, but we’ll keep you all posted as soon as they are announced.
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