Universal's Dark Universe was jolted to life earlier this year by the surprise success of The Invisible Man, and now producer Jason Blum hopes the studio lets him bring back its other classic movie monsters. His company, Blumhouse Productions, is already signed on to make a Wolfman reboot starring Ryan Reynolds.
"I'd love to be in charge of them," Blum said, speaking to Inverse about the possibility of making other monster flicks for Universal. He noted, however, that the decision was ultimately not up to him.
"I wish I was the right person to ask this, I’m just not," Blum said. "They let us produce Invisible Man and they’re going to let us produce Wolfman, but the monsters and their fate and the direction and what the monsters mean overall, that’s entirely still a question for Universal."
Before Invisible Man, Universal's Dark Universe was all but dead following the critical and financial disaster of 2017's The Mummy. The film was supposed to launch a series of movies, with at least seven initially slated. The titles included Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Phantom of the Opera, Hunchback of Notre Dame and Invisible Man. Javier Bardem had been signed on to play Frankenstein's monster and Johnny Depp was pegged to be the Invisible Man. Russell Crowe was supposed to reprise his role as Dr. Jekyll.
According to the prior plans, Crowe's Jekyll would have formed a monster-hunting organization called Prodigium, which operates much like the S.H.I.E.L.D. agency in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.