TOM’LL FIX: The Dark Universe

I used to be really into wrestling.  Where my loyalties lay in regards to which promotion I was into tended to shift with the times--I used to stay up to 3, 4 in the morning on Fridays when MSG used to run ECW in the wee hours--but I was familiar with all of them, more or less.  In my deepest mania for wrestling, I got involved with Fantasy Feds, where you would create a wrestler and fashion storylines, matches and skits online as if it was a real wrestling federation.  These feds had weekly ‘TV’ shows that were posted online, and the storylines and skits you created that week would dictate if you won your matches or not.

I bring this up because, in the wake of my enduring 2017‘s The Mummy as part of my Halloween Horrorfest this year, a friend of mine opined that the ‘Dark Universe’ was doomed from the start because the Universal Monsters were lame.  I disagreed with him, pointing out that the Universal Monsters were the original shared universe when Larry Talbot came across the Frankenstein Monster in 1943‘s Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man.  The idea of an extended universe featuring these iconic characters wasn’t bad; the problem with The Mummy is they were trying to force such a universe into existence instead of letting it develop organically over time.  This friend then challenged anyone to make a compelling cinematic universe, specifically utilizing The Wolf Man and The Creature of The Black Lagoon.

I’ll take that challenge.  It’ll be like in my Fantasy Fed days, only with movie franchises!

Let’s start with the skeleton of that 2017 misfire.  There are elements that could work--it’s been proven before, with 1999‘s The Mummy, that using that monster in an action/pulp setting can work.  The idea of two different parties contending for the same item is also good; I can work with that.  Because I like Sofia Boutella (she’s luuuurvely), we can keep the idea of a female mummy.  Now since this is supposed to be the start of an extended universe, I’m going to allow for the idea of an organization investigating the supernatural...although I’m going to alter that conceit quite a bit.  For the purposes of this exercise, I’m choosing to call this organization The Eden Foundation.

So...our new mummy movie has a similar first act--there’s a rugged American relic hunter (played by a younger actor than Mr. Cruise to make the possible romantic subplot less icky) and a learned, clever and maybe-more-knowledgeable-than-she-should-be European archaeologist (I envision whoever the equivalent of Julie Delphy is these days), and they both converge on a curious Egyptian tomb where there shouldn’t be one.  They discover a sarcophagus inside and there’s some tension as to what they should do with it.  As our archaeologist tries to figure out what this sarcophagus contains--utilizing resources that seem...out of place for a academic--the relic hunter starts going into these fugue states where he interacts with Hottie Ho-Tep (this is where we learn about her background, not an exposition dump right before the story starts).  These fugue states compel him to return to the dig site and release Hottie Ho-Tep, and our archeologist must fight to reclaim the relic hunter and, with knowledge he has gleaned during his interactions with the mummy, return Hottie Ho-Tep to her tomb permanently.  At the end of the movie, the archaeologist explains that the experience he’s had may have changed him...and she works with an organization that can help him come to terms with what he’s learned.  That organization is The Eden Foundation.

So what we have is an action-intensive horror-themed adventure film that’s in keeping with the tone of the 1999 film.  More importantly, the film has some connective tissue but it would stand on its own.  If Universal decided not to go forward with any more films, they haven’t drawn attention to their extended universe ambitions.

The next film I would make is The Creature of The Black Lagoon.  I would make very few changes to the orginal, save for maybe updating the tech...and having the expedition to investigate this intriguing fossil that leads to the protagonists finding a living gill-man in the aforementioned Black Lagoon funded and sponsored by The Eden Foundation.  Maybe we have some scenes where our protagonists interact with an Eden Foundation rep, maybe even the Head of The Foundation, a large gentleman named Adam Newson (I cannot picture anyone but Javier Bardem for reasons that will become apparent later).  There’s no other connective tissue, there’s no stopping the story for an exposition dump on Who The Eden Foundation Is And Why They Matter, it’s just there.

So let’s move on to our third film.  Here’s where we enter the part of the experiment where the world building comes more front and center.  Since it was mentioned in the initial challenge, let’s use The Wolf Man.  Here we follow Larry Talbot--it’s a shame Benecio delToro is now aged out of the role as I’m fashioning this alternate expanded universe, as he was tailored made to play a hirsuite monstrosity--as he returns to England after an extended tenure in the states (You know, just like in the original!) to help care for his ailing father.  Here’s where we make The Eden Foundation a more central element...they have their headquarters in the township the Talbots oversee.  Larry meets Adam and his assistant, Victoria Franks.  There are some mysterious deaths and cattle mutilations, and the villagers believe it’s a wild animal.  Larry leads a search for the culprit and comes across the wolfen creature which attacks him.  Two people rush to save him--Adam and a mysterious hunter type.  The hunter trains a gun on Larry as he’s lying there bleeding and is about to shoot him when Adam snatches--and seems to break--the gun before our hero passes out.

When Larry comes to, he’s in a sick bay at The Eden Foundation.  Victoria is there, and informs him that he is Infected with Lycanthropy, and he can’t be let out into the world until they can find a way to arrest and control the spread of the ‘werewolf virus.’  Here we learn a bit about the Foundation and its mission statement to come to terms with the ‘wider’ supernatural world, understand it and find a way to manage the interaction with it.  Larry scoffs at this--until he turns that night and escapes (big action sequence with Wolfy Larry vs. Eden Security).

This will lead to a three way conflict between Larry, the Eden people, and the mysterious hunter, who represents a third faction (not sure what to call these people; let’s just use ‘Helsings’ as a placeholder) whose purpose is to eradicate the presence of the supernatural in the real world.  It ends with Adam fighting to protect the insensate Wolfy Larry from the Helsing, displaying unusual--one would say supernatural strength.

The film ends with Larry agreeing to work with the Eden Foundation and learning Adam’s secret--that he is, in fact, the Frankenstein Monster (see?  Bardem was going to play him in the Bill Condon Bride of Frankenstein remake, and I can’t really see anyone else doing the part.  Well, okay, maybe Ron Perlman, but with Barden we also maybe get Penelope Cruz as the Bride). 

I can see several ways we can go with the Dark Universe from there.  One obvious idea is a second movie featuring the heroes of our Mummy reboot--I like the idea of maybe our duo facing off against a bog mummy (look it up; you’ll be glad you did).  Another idea leads directly from where we left the characters in The Wolf Man, with Adam/Frankenstein telling his story as a period piece.  We could also do a story about the Helsings, with them doing battle with some supernatural terror.  And, of course, there’s also Dracula, who could be the Magneto to Adam’s Professor X, plotting to place the supernatural world into the ascendance.

So that’s what I would do--create the framework gradually to avoid the kind of exposition dumps that stopped 2017‘s The Mummy dead, make the first two movies in the franchise with little pieces of connective tissues, but able to stand on their own, and provide a complete story experience in every film.  I think that, like most of the Marvel films, we cast young, so that the same actor can play the same character over several movies, and maybe we should try to go for less-popular actors so their presence in the role doesn’t overshadow the character itself.

Thoughts?  Any other cinematic or televisual thingie you’d like me to fix?  Let me know.