10 Movie Franchises Hollywood Will Never Let Die
7. Universal Monsters
Farewell, Dark Universe, how we hardly knew ye.
After The Mummy earned justifiably savage reviews and the brakes were put on the rest of Universal's announced projects as a result, it seems that the latest attempt at cashing in on the enduring popularity of the studio's iconic monsters is already dead in the water.
Since the turn of the 21st Century alone we've seen two sequels to the Brendan Fraser-led Mummy, last year's ill-fated Tom Cruise vehicle, Van Helsing, The Wolfman and Dracula Untold. That the latter four are regarded as either critical and commercial disappointments (or both) generally sums up how much of a handle Universal have on one of their key properties.
Even though movies featuring Dracula, The Mummy and Frankenstein reached their creative peak all the way back in the 1930's, every few years Universal will inevitably attempt to reboot one or more of their monsters to keep the expanded franchise in a state of perpetuity.
The studio's first foray into the monster game, Lon Chaney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, was released all the way back in 1923 so it seems highly unlikely that Universal will give up on these characters having persevered with them for almost a century.