Posted in: Dark Universe, Movies, Universal | Tagged: bride of frankenstein, dark universe, movies, Universal Pictures

Canceled Dark Universe Bride of Frankenstein Film Details Revealed

When it comes to poking fun at failed cinematic universes, no one fell so hard and from so high as the Dark Universe. They had a logo; they announced all of these big movies with massive stars. There was this awkward photoshoot where it was unclear whether or not all of them were even in the same room [spoiler alert: they weren't]. Then The Mummy came out and flopped so hard that everyone got cold feet, and the entire thing just fell apart in such a spectacular fashion that people still retweet that awkward photoshoot every year to make fun of the thing. There were a couple of canceled projects that never got off of the ground after The Mummy made everything fall apart, and one of those projects was Bride of Frankenstein. Bill Condon was set to direct, and they even had Angelina Jolie attached to play the lead role. However, it just never came together. Screenwriter David Koepp worked on the screenplay for The Mummy, and while Collider didn't ask him directly about that project, they did ask him about Bride of Frankenstein.

I did a couple different versions. That one was a dramatic history. It was gearing up, it was gonna be a great big movie. Bill Condon was gonna direct it and then The Mummy detonated and that all fell apart. Then I did a much smaller version and I thought that was interesting, but that didn't quite work out. I think someone else is taking a try now. So, I don't know. I felt like Bride Of Frankenstein is a treasure obviously and it doesn't belong to me. And I got two really good cracks at it, so definitely fair to let someone else have a try. So I don't know what will work out with that.

"Detonated" is certainly a way to word what happened there, but it sounds like Koepp is under any delusions about why Dark Universe and everything around it fell apart. As for Bride of Frankenstein, that one was pretty far into production; for a while, it looked like they were getting close to starting, so he was asked if there were any details that he could share.

Oh yeah, sure. It was going to be a very big lavish, beautiful, gothic horror production. And one idea I liked was the first thirty or forty pages took place in the 1870s as the Frankenstein movies do and then she became sort of inert for 150 years and was rediscovered and reawakened in the present day. And I thought that was cool.

"Gothic horror" is giving this writer some flashbacks about how Crimson Peak bombed at the box office, but that's neither here nor there. It isn't surprising that someone else is taking a crack at Bride of Frankenstein. The Invisible Man came out in 2020 and was fantastic, we know that another Wolfman movie is in the works with Ryan Gosling, and some pictures are floating around the internet of Nicolas Cage looking like absolute perfection for Renfield. Does this mean we will get another awkward photoshoot with another logo before we even see one good movie? Probably not; one hopes that Universal has learned from their mistakes.

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