In 2017, Universal Pictures promised monster movie fans that it was planning to reboot some of its classic creature features and turn them into a new cinematic franchise along the lines of the MCU. Although these ambitious hopes were shelved back in 2018, fans aren’t letting the studio forget its past mistakes.
As the ‘Dark Universe’, the name given to the proposed cinematic monster universe, turns five years old in 2022, Twitter has been alight with film fans reminding Universal of its failures. Initially, the Dark Universe was set to see horror movies such as The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man, all existing in the same world. However, when The Mummy was released in 2017 and received a whopping 16% on Rotten Tomatoes, these dreams were promptly shelved.
A post from the now-abandoned account for the Dark Universe has recently gone viral, with many users quote tweeting a 2017 group shot of the stars that were set to kickstart the horror franchise. The original post was ironically captioned: “Witness the beginning of Dark Universe.”
As you can imagine, the quote tweets are filled with jokes, pointing out that the Dark Universe ended before it even began.
Below are some of the reactions on Twitter:
It's been five years since the Dark Universe changed the game. Happy Anniversary to the greatest to never do it. https://t.co/pi8FxGPQ6y
— Minovsky (@MinovskyArticle) May 22, 2022
Somebody did a dark ritual so they could sacrifice the Dark Universe in order to make Morbius https://t.co/YbsU4BS95r
— Dragonlord MastaMunsta (@MunstaMasta) May 22, 2022
However, despite all the jokes, plenty of fans expressed their remorse that the Dark Universe never came to be. Considering how Universal is still going ahead and making a slew of monster movies such as Renfield, Dracula, and The Wolf Man, it’s plausible that the company could potentially bring back the idea of a shared universe, instead of purely stand-alone films like 2020’s The Invisible Man.
We will keep you posted as soon as we know more. In the meantime, here is our list of the best ghost movies of all time.