10 Monster Movies The Mummy Needs To Improve Upon

The tragic story of a man being bitten by (and ultimately transforming into) a werewolf worked very well as a 70 minute black-and-white feature back in 1941, but as a 2 hour long long megabucks effects showcase from the director of Jurassic Park III? Not so much.

Still, Universal decided to throw $150 million at the movie, giving it an A list cast (Anthony Hopkins, Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt) and some striking production design, but the half-baked script simply wasn’t ready to go before the cameras. The finished film is equal parts atmospheric period horror movie and fast-paced blockbuster, neither of which work well together and when the film drops story and character in favour of CG transformations and action sequences, it all starts to feel mechanical.

Released on 12 February in the US, the movie was beaten to the #1 spot by – what else? – Garry Marshall’s Valentine’s Day, which was produced for a third of The Wolfman’s budget and made twice as much money. After making $140 million worldwide, the picture was later denounced by Universal head honcho Ron Meyer, who told students at the Savannah College Of Art & Design: “We make a lot of sh*tty movies. Each one of them breaks my heart.”