Hello, and welcome to How Did This Not Get Made?
This is the podcast all about the moves you've never seen, the scripts that were never
filmed and the ideas that never even made it to the page.
My name is Daniel Kawka, and I'm Lexcee Riley.
[music]
We're going to jump to 2004, way ahead.
There are people that have been born and died in between that gap.
Absolutely, and they've had a remix in between.
We're not even going to talk about the Monster Squad.
I was just going to say that Monster Squad.
Monster Squad is a very fun movie.
For the sake of time, seriously go watch Monster Squad.
I do mention that in the Carpenter episode.
You do, which is why I jumped to 2014.
And we'll say that if this is your first episode, Monster Squad had nothing to do with
Universal, it was a Warner Brothers production because, like I mentioned before, the creature
is the only thing made by Universal.
And in Monster Squad, they do have a Gill Man, but they had to change it just enough to
skirt around the copyright issue.
They also weren't really holding on to the rights of these things in the 80s, 90s.
They were doing different movies.
That just makes sense.
Up until 99, Brendan Fraser Mummy, and we all know and love.
You seen the bumper sticker.
Yeah.
I'd rather be watching the critically claimed 1999, the mummy, starring Brendan Fraser and
Rachel Weiss.
Yeah.
Like I said, we're jumping to 2004.
For Van Helsing.
And Helsing, you manoe!
I can't you tell the world I work for you because we do not exist.
This is supposedly rumored to be one of the first, like, launchings of a new cinematic universe.
It seems more like a low-key accident into a cinematic universe, using an university
universe.
I think it had more to do with, like I mentioned before, its efficiency, but when you have
Van Helsing.
Right.
When you have a Monster Hunter.
And you're thinking, well, what monsters can you go after and you can kind of go down
and be like, well, we have a lot of established monsters that are around there.
And if he's going after one of the classic monsters, which is Dracula, you might as well,
like, throw in another classic monster as well.
This is four years before Iron Man.
So I don't doubt that there is a buzz for interconnected stories.
There were other plans that were supposed to go along with this.
There was a rumored plan for a TV show called Transylvania that would have used the
same props and sets from the movie.
And then there was discussion of a possible spin-off.
So maybe it's actually ahead of the game, but there's nothing concretely that's like this
was the launch.
I don't even think that it was a thought of we need to keep the song in the same universe.
At this time, the 90s, 2000s, even in the 80s, the idea of creating a franchise was really
make a sequel and not really make another movie that can joins with this movie.
Yeah.
So given the success of the Mummy franchise, they brought back director Steven Summers
because, you know, unto ever generation, a slayer is born.
More than a vampire slayer.
He's a monster slayer and a knight of the holy order.
Question mark.
Gabrielle Van Helsing is played by the ever-popular Wolverine.
I mean, the singing and dancing huge act.
Okay.
The man oozes charisma, so I understand the casting 100%.
Van Helsing is tasked with helping protect the Valerius bloodline by defeating Dracula,
whose form aband, an alliance, with Frankenstein's monster.
One of Valerius, the last of her bloodline, the one he's supposed to protect, joins him
on his crusade, even though she's now in more danger.
Together they face the brides of Dracula, Dracula himself, and a werewolf, which bites Van Helsing.
And Anna gets kidnapped by Dracula and off to the masquerade so he queues the Phantom Reference.
In the big battle Van Helsing, an werewolf form kills Dracula and Anna charges at him with
the cure.
He pounces on her and accidentally breaks her neck, but the vile with the cure did its
job.
It's probably the best CGI moment in the film is when he turns from howling werewolf into
grieving Van Helsing.
Don't worry though, he cremates her and she appears to him in the sky, reuniting with her
bloodline, you know, the one he was supposed to protect.
Oh, just like Mufasa.
The film had a budget of 170 million, grossing 370.
Yeah.
What?
Yeah.
Where did it go?
This is the time the early 2000s is where I think budget exploded exploded.
They just don't worry.
It grossed 300.
Still baffling, but it wasn't considered a financial success.
Yeah, because it didn't double its box up.
They just gave the director a blank check and they're just like, yeah, we trust you.
All of the monsters that coupled with negative reviews, which rotten tomatoes called it
a hollow creature feature that suffers from CGI overload.
Rotten tomatoes can totally be hit or miss sometimes, but I tend to agree.
It's a really big CGI overload.
It is one of those moments and this is around the time that George Lucas was coming out
with the prequel trilogy where he was proving and showing all of Hollywood that so much
of our solutions is in CGI and you could really do anything.
And the problem is is that you have a lot of filmmakers who are like, oh, we can do whatever
we want.
The problem is is that they're not on the other side of the computer.
Just because you can.
And then the CGI artists are just like, what the fuck?
Yeah.
This is why like a director like Gorgherbinski who did Pirates of the Caribbean, the ring,
he was on the other end and he understood CGI.
And when it came to him doing Pirates, like he knew how it works.
Whereas if you have a director who has no idea how it works, he'll just be like, we'll
fix it in post and then you have the skeleton going, well, fix it in a place.
But Steven Summers did the mummy.
So he knew how it worked.
I think this is just design of the times.
I don't think this is anything other than a byproduct of let's throw CGI in everything.
He might have been surrounded by Yesman.
This is my speculation.
He did the mummy.
Greatly successful.
And the mummy too.
Greatly successful.
We don't talk about the mummy three.
They have a heavy CGI.
He is, yes, pushing the boundaries, but they also have their limitations as well.
Coming off the success of the mummy, you're now surrounded by Yesman.
To be like, can we do this as well?
And they're like, yeah, we'll figure it out.
And not really knowing just to be like, there's whispering in the corner and be like, I don't
think we can do that.
As someone who deeply loves the classic monsters, I'm going to be honest, didn't watch the
whole movie.
I've been on YouTube a lot of it.
I couldn't do it.
So I am not a proper judge, but I love the design of the old creatures.
One of the main reasons is I watched the trailer and saw what they had done to my boy, the monster.
He had like a panel on the back of him with electricity shooting through it.
I don't know.
And it wasn't the square shaped head.
Like all of Jack prices stuff seems to have like gone out the window.
The werewolves were 100% CGI and massive, which was cool for the time.
But I think the creature design is something that's kept it into the sort of zeitgeist of
things.
And I think that's another reason this was not like hailed.
I want to blame X-Men and other Hujakman movie because when it came to their costumes,
they're like, you know what's really lame?
Those comic book costumes.
Right.
What's inside these?
What would you prefer?
Yellow spandex?
And we're going to put them in black leather and not think any further than that.
But they can't move in.
It was like, oh, this way you can do with superhero movies and adapt it to the big screen instead
of like trying to take the exact costumes that are to be honest, they look cool in the comics
anyways.
So instead of being like, those things are lame, we know what's cool.
I feel like that's what's happening when it comes to the film adaptations to be like old
Frankenstein, lame, old news.
Don't care.
We're going to modernize them.
So keep the comic book idea fresh in your brain because 10 years are going to go by at
the start of the MCU has already happened.
And now we're getting another launch question mark with 2014's Dracula Untold.
And now rather than sticking with Bromstocker's Dracula, the story went into history rather
than mystery, focusing on Vlad III known as the son of the dragon, also known as the impaler,
also known as Dracula.
He uses his monster side to protect his family from the Ottoman, including a swarm of bats
to deter the enemy.
The enemy?
At the end of the movie, we cut to a present day where Vlad meets a woman named Meena.
So we do, Sneagan Elisdoker, who is played by the same actress who is his original wife
in the movie, Marie Meena.
The film had a budget of roughly 70 million.
They learned their lesson.
Grossing 215.5 million worldwide, but again, not considered a massive financial success.
And again, rotten tomatoes have some words.
Neither awful enough to suck nor sharp enough to bite.
Dracula Untold misses the point of its iconic character's deathless appeal.
The rumor moral swirls with claims that this is in fact a second launch into the cinematic
universe, including reshoots of the future scenes to make it of more of a tie-in, which
a universal representative has denied.
After the negative reviews, even the slightest chance of any connection was put to bed.
I watched this movie.
It isn't bad.
I get going into the Vlad Vien Peler of it.
But again, if we are going off of the classic monsters as more of the comparison to the comic
book, you just took a heart right into one of the most favorite and the original monsters.
Luke Evans is wonderful in it, but it's definitely a hard sell as someone who also loves the
gothic story.
So then we've cut to the official, very publicized launch of the Dark Universe.
Ah, the account with one tweet.
The account with one tweet.
Beginning in 2013, Universal had actually hired Robert Orchie and Alex Kertzmann to collaborate
into developing a relaunch of the universal monsters.
So I think that's where that rumor's coming from that like, well, they started it in 2013
and Dracula and told us 2014 then of course they were tied together.
They were tasked with creating a new shared universe and they were really searching for an
MCU.
To be fair, MCU is widely successful at this moment.
2014, we are encroaching on Infinity War.
It's just money signs in their eyes.
And Universal is not alone in wanting to have a franchise like that.
Warner Bros. trying to do the same thing with DC.
It doesn't seem unusual that this is trying to happen.
And you have it.
You actually already have a universe in your history.
Yeah.
And they made the mistake of not having an Abbott and Castello movie first.
Thank you.
Roberta Orchie would wind up dropping out and be replaced with Chris Morgan.
And so Alex Kertzmann is directing the new mummy.
And on May 22nd of 2017, this is when the tweet went out.
So a tweet went out.
And Universal unveiled a new motion logo designed by Weta Digital.
Oh, what a.
And a musical theme by Danny Elfman that would play before each film starting with the mummy.
So we're going to connect this all together with a logo.
Okay.
So a lot of people really love the logo because I get it.
You turn around the iconic Universal logo and it is the dark side.
I understand.
I get it.
But here's the thing after watching so many of the classic movies back to back.
I miss the plane.
Old timey black and white Universal.
Like that's what I want.
I want the Universal logo to move like it does.
We go to the dark side.
We can go back to black and white with the little plane and then the dark universe goes
across.
I wanted more of a throwback moment and not more CGI.
My guess is that we are looking forward.
We are not going back with the plot of the mummy.
We were 100% not going back.
Do you see this movie?
I saw it a while ago.
I actually I saw what I was doing research for the creature and something I mentioned to
you before.
So you remember it in detail?
Yeah.
Let's go through it.
Plot point by plot point.
It's one of those movies that just did not stick with me.
Yeah.
I remember Jake Johnson.
Nick Miller.
What do you know what Tom Cruise is in name is?
Nick.
Oh, it didn't stick with me.
I remember the mummy girl with the two pupils in one eyeball.
Yep.
And I thought that was really neat.
Her design was really cool.
She was really cool.
Okay.
I didn't take notes on the movie, but I did watch it.
So I'm just going to free hand go through it real quick because we have to understand why
what happened happened.
So they announced that Tom Cruise is going to lead the new mummy.
At one point, there's also a rumor that he was going to be like a doctor, jackal, hide
character, but that seems to be pretty squashed.
So we are doing the mummy and it is Tom Cruise as a military man with his friend Nick Miller.
They are...
Spiruluncings?
Splunking.
Yeah.
They don't go splunking until later.
And the whole point is is that Nick Miller, oh, poor Jake Johnson, Nick Miller, I don't
know why I can't remember his character's name, but the two of them are thieves.
But we are not in Egypt anymore.
We're in Iraq.
No.
Because...
And I get it.
So the lore of the new mummy, which again escapes me what her name is, but the lore is that
she was supposed to be queen until her father had a son.
And I'm totally probably watching this.
So please don't fact check me.
But basically she winds up killing a baby in the opening.
So we are already not going to care about her.
You are already just evil.
No.
If we've learned anything from Save the Cat, save the baby first and then she accidentally
drops it in the Nile.
All we learn from her right out the gate is that she wants power.
What did Emo De Boan in the original and 99 version?
He wanted his love.
Right.
He just wanted love.
That's it.
Yeah.
It's relatable.
But we all love.
Everyone wants love.
So we got to our modern day and I racked her treasure hunting and then because she had killed
said baby they had shipped her far away, which is why she's not there.
That's why she's in Iraq.
Yes.
Sure.
Anyway, in their treasure hunting, they wind up like tanking this village.
Just ruining it.
This is where they go splunking with the pretty blonde lady.
Because when she walks in, it's clear that she and Tom Cruise have slept together and
he wasn't very good and we're going to make a lot of puns about them.
Yeah.
We see the same thing in America.
They do this blunking and our buddy Jake Johnson/Nick Miller/can't remember character name gets
bit by something.
Yeah.
But it's not a scarab.
Like those were terrifying as child.
Oh, all right.
Bring them back.
Yeah.
But that's not what bites him.
We have the sarcophagus we're on the plane and our buddy Nick Miller goes insane.
He kills the like head military guy and he starts trying to kill everybody else.
Then Tom Cruise has to shoot his best pal.
Oh, man.
So this is the second episode where Tom Cruise has to kill his best friend.
Yeah.
So then it gets real fuzzy from here because we start jumping around because is it that
the mummy is in love with set set gets in here somewhere whether he's giving her power
or whatnot.
That becomes a part of it and then we jump.
This is where we go to the universe building.
We put a quick pause on the mummy story.
We jump to Dr. Jekyll's mansion.
Prodigium.
Prodigium?
Yeah.
You could never pronounce this.
I remember.
Well, it's because when Russell Crowe, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde says it.
He says it with his accent and he says it so well that I'm like, well, I'll never be able
to recreate that.
Welcome to the Digium.
So he's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and unlike the original where we see this like monstrous
form takeover and is very unsettling, he becomes like super heroesque, super strength and
creepy eyes.
Yeah.
But we are in his big mansion slash agents of shield.
Law is dropped.
That's sort of what it feels like it feels like we are trying to get introduced to a
Nick Fury archetype of I'm the person that will get the band together and the business
being evil.
Mr. Morgan.
Recognize, contain, examine, destroy.
I get why they did Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde because it is the OG, the original and Russell
Crowe's great man.
He even was supposed to get his own solo film.
But why are we in this movie?
We jump to a different movie.
Yeah.
It's like they had a completely different script and then produces like, well, we have to put
in some major scene to like make sure that we can launch from somewhere which using Dr.
Jekyll as a launching point.
It's an interesting move.
You can connect a lot of things there.
But if you want to tie it into the story, why not Van Helsing or Dr. Pretorius.
Yeah.
But like if you go to Van Helsing to be like, hey, we got like an evil mummy.
Right.
Trying to kill us, you know, who could kill that mummy?
A monster hunter.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I have a feeling that they didn't want to use Van Helsing given the 2004 version.
Possibly.
So they're trying to stay away from Dracula and they're trying to stay away from Van Helsing.
That all happens in his like monster office.
We do see the creature from the Black Lagoon, like the hand, lady mummy and her mercury powers
are there.
And then Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are having their inward outward duel.
And our lady friend, winds up like having to fight to get Nick, not Nick Miller, but Nick
Tom Cruise out of the room that he's trapped in with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
And when she does this, she winds up taking a book, a random book off the shelf and like
hitting the guy over the head with it.
This book is the Necromancer is the book of the dead in 1999, mummy's book of the dead.
Oh, yeah.
But there is so much monster lore in here that I'm like, oh, this, I want this to work.
I need this to work.
So then we learn about prudygium and how it is trying to basically gather all the evil.
And then we put a pause on the universe and now we're back to the mummy.
The token lady friend winds up dying and Tom Cruise and the magical staff and the mummy
have a fight in which he steps himself.
Okay.
And now becomes a mummy, the mummy.
He now becomes set.
So he brings lady friend back from the dead and his buddy, Jake Johnson and we cut to them
in the desert.
I don't remember if he's like off to find a cure or if there's off to steal more fun stuff,
but the two of them are basically back to the beginning where they are going through
the desert to keep their adventures going.
If we go back to the theme of the originals, like we're going to say those are the comic
books we're going to say that that's like the original lore.
What does monster do?
They don't want to kill people.
They are misunderstood.
Correct.
Monster accidentally does something bad and monster dies at the end.
Tom Cruise is now invincible, much like a superhero.
Yeah.
So that is the end of the mummy.
There is no mid-gradancy and I totally understand there trying to do it in a different format
which I appreciate.
I think this universe could have gone to really cool places and the slate of monsters set
to return is the really fun part.
So as we said, we have Russell Crowe as Dr. Jacqueline Mr. Hyde who was supposed to get
a solo home.
So he's in a photo that came out with the lady mummy.
So I am so sorry to Sophia Batella.
She plays Aminat who is the new lady mummy.
It's Sophia Batella, Russell Crowe, Tom Cruise and then you have Johnny Depp in this photo.
Who is supposed to be the invisible man and then you have Javier Bardem who is supposed
to be the monster.
The monster is in.
Yeah, Frankenstein's monster.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
You have this set of people in this photo which is the tweet that went out was like get ready
for a new era of gods and monsters.
Dr. Pretoria is his famous line.
That's the only tweet.
However, it goes deeper than that.
So this second movie that was set to launch in the cinematic universe was supposed to be
the bride of Frankenstein, not Frankenstein but the bride of Frankenstein with Javier Bardem
and Angelina Jolie as the bride.
Oh, not Scarlett Johansson.
No, no, no.
And then Bill Condon who had done like Beauty and the Beast was supposed to direct.
It was set to release on February 14th, 2019.
Happy Valentine's Day folks.
It was described as a liberation tale for the female monster.
Move over 50 shades of gray.
I don't know.
Listen, as someone who loves the bride of Frankenstein, I wish they would have started
there.
I don't know about starting there, not to say that this movie shouldn't be paid.
I think that you just need to concentrate on one monster first.
The problem with trying to establish the franchise or try to create a sequel is the studios keep
getting the one thing wrong where they're like, we have so many characters.
And we need to like mention them or show parts of them throughout the whole movie, sprinkle
them in, set something up.
And here's the thing, MCU, wait started was you focused on one character.
I mean, we can look at Iron Man, but you can also look at even before the movie.
Then the lesser successful Hulk movie, but the thing is what that movie is that they were
like, we are making a Hulk movie first.
And then to tie it together, then you had Nick Fury, right at the end to be like, in
the end credits, yeah, to be like, I want you to join a team or at the end of Iron Man,
to be like, there is so much more right than your little world.
And that is how you do it is that you make a good monster movie first.
So even if they did bride, Frankenstein first, just focus on that.
Just make it a really good movie.
And then at the end of it, doctor, Pretoria's turns around in a swivel chair and is like,
I come to you to make a team really.
The monster has like bite marks on his neck.
We like, that's strange.
I don't know where that came from.
Dracula goes after the bride instead and then end credits.
Right.
But there was more roles rumored for this universe.
Excellent.
We go to Channing Tatum as Van Halsey.
Yeah.
Luke Evans returning as Dracula for Dracula and told to Dwayne the Rock Johnson as the wolf
man.
Interesting.
And Scarlett Johansson was actually rumored as Kay in the creature from the Black Lagoon.
That rumor I do remember, I remember it wasn't ever really confirmed.
No, these are all like in the rumor mill of romance.
A lot of it was like wishful casting, but yeah, I do remember Scarlett Johansson coming
up a lot as Kay.
I mean, it really makes sense.
In a modern day setting, she is that part.
Oh, yeah.
I think my favorite one that is not a rumor because the director Palfee confirmed it was
a movie called Dark Army.
We're talking about Palfee director Fried's Man.
Many monster films.
He said, I want to bring that ooki spooky feeling back to movies with these monsters
you root for an understand at the same time.
Start there.
Just kidding.
That movie, I think, sounds really fun.
I think the other thing, we keep going back to the MCU, but I think throwing out the MCU
and just talking about a cinematic universe and why it would work.
Each movie can have its own tone.
If you want to go the abit and can still out and do some spooky season comedic thing
with the feeling of those original movies, that is a way to bring both the classic monster
fans and modern day fans in.
I don't know, maybe we will, maybe we won't.
That's the one that he still really wants to do.
So, Fingers crossed.
Do you want to see, and I'm going to be specific, because I'm going to ask it several times.
Do you want to see this version of the Dark Universe get made with Pradigium?
No.
There's too much going on.
The angle that they're going at of like, we need to get the band back together, type thing.
I don't like that idea, because these monsters, they're not superheroes.
There's the ticket.
Thing that I can see a correlation between Van Halstein, Dracula and told, and the mummy,
is that the monster is lose their sort of spooky gothic vibes and become straight up
superhuman.
Yeah.
I don't like that angle.
The reason why monster movies work so well is that you have a misunderstood creature.
That should be the heart of it is that it is a scary looking thing wanting to do good,
opposing people who want to do harm towards that monster.
Yeah.
I don't think that this failed necessarily because lack of desire.
I know that a younger generation might look at the classic monsters and be like, oh,
they're dated.
Oh, the effects aren't good.
Or the editing is choppy.
They're simply not deemed scary by today's standards.
But I think the one thing that always makes horror great, regardless of time is tension.
The tension in the classic monster movies definitely holds up.
We're going back to that sense of tension.
I don't think that love for the original monster movies will ever go away because of that.
No, and it still doesn't.
And it's still being marketed today.
There's no shortage of monster content before we get to current monster content.
Yeah, because I really want to talk about the movies.
I know.
I agree with you.
I don't know that I would want to see the prodigium.
Like the prodigium as a thought is cool.
Maybe if it was a TV show.
I am a sucker for emo depth and I don't want him to go away.
No, you know how you use Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde.
In a solo film?
I don't know if you ever watched the back to the future animated TV show.
I did not.
So please educate me.
There's a moment at the end.
It's like science corner with Dr. Brown.
Christopher Lloyd would come in and actually teach kid science.
Oh hell yeah.
I'm going to watch it now.
Yeah.
If you had at the end, just be like Dr. Jekyll is to be like, welcome to my laboratory.
My pernigium.
Let me tell you about this creature right here.
This one swims in a lagoon.
He is very territorial, but loves the ladies.
I was just going to say make it a children's short, like the group series.
He really loves the late, no, maybe don't make it for the children.
And then like he starts to morph and be like, whoop, gotta go.
Okay, so as I was saying and you are so itching to talk about, there's no shortage of
monster content.
The official end to the dark universe, or at least this time's try, came in 2020 with the
release of the final movie we saw before the pandemic March 8th, 2020.
In the Elizabeth Moss vehicle.
The Invisible Man.
It is produced by Blumhouse and directed by Lee Wanell.
This movie garnered critical and financial success at the start of a world wide pandemic.
Yeah, it was probably the most successful film of 2020.
How much do you think the movie cost to make?
I would guess like 5 grand.
Okay, give me a number.
Okay, fine.
It's Blumhouse because he always cuts it off at 30 million.
Lower.
So they definitely catered to Jason Blum himself.
Sure did.
Yeah, and they were like, we can easily make this movie for 10 million.
Lower.
And they were like, well, let me do you one better because we can make it for 5 million.
The movie cost $7 million to make.
And they're like Elizabeth Moss is just a little more expensive than that.
So we're going to have to give her to $2 million more.
I cost $7 million to make and grossed $845 million at the start of a worldwide pandemic.
Goddamn.
Okay, so spoiler time.
You've had four years in a pandemic to watch this movie.
Yeah, but if you haven't seen it, skip ahead because we're going to talk about it.
I actually wrote my notes.
Now, Dan, I know we watched this movie and I did check the AMC A list to see that we saw it.
I since defunct AMC A list account.
Oh, I still have mine.
I can go back all the way to 2020.
It's like two movies and another.
I can't.
I will explain that story later, but I will.
Off the ear.
Let's do this one.
Well, you know the story already.
I do know the story.
There's a lot of reasons to like this movie.
Many sites that I've read deemed it as a feminist horror piece.
Okay.
I can see it, but I think it goes beyond that.
I think it is more paranoia.
It's more of that fear of the unknown.
It's really smart.
It's really calculated.
The score, the script, I would even go so far to say is the acting is great, but it innate
the star of the show.
Okay.
So there's one scene in particular.
The kitchen scene?
No, not the kitchen scene.
But the one that always catches me off guard and I've watched this movie a handful of times.
Usually while I'm doing something else and this scene makes me stop in my tracks every
time.
She meets her friend in a restaurant full of people.
Yeah.
Okay.
You don't know the entire movie you are on edge because you know that he's there.
And now we're in public and you're like, oh, I can let my guard down because I'm in a restaurant
full of people.
The air is actually super right with tension.
And just as Elizabeth Moss's CC is explaining exactly what a dream is doing in the Invisible
Man.
The entire plot twists.
It is four cuts in six seconds.
The knife raises cuts her friends throughout and before CC can even blink, that knife is
in her hand.
Yeah.
And some kind of suit that Adrienne has built and it has cameras and it somehow, what?
Before we can even register what's going on, it is flipped and now she has committed
motor.
She hasn't, but it looks like it real well.
That's the perfect way to frame someone for murder.
Yeah.
On my like 75th feeling, what I realized is he's given her a way out.
How so?
So this is the bigger spoiler.
That's how she kills Adrienne.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
So like he actually is giving her the out of the whole situation.
That's the story.
She winds up killing him in the exact same way that he kills her friend.
And then when she walks away, bag in hand, we get a glimpse of the Invisible Suit, which
now the Invisible Suit, it's not monochaine.
It is a bunch of little censored cameras.
Yeah.
It's the technology that they use in 007, Die Another Day.
I've never seen it.
They show him the car, the Ashton Martin.
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
And they're like, it turns invisible and they're like, how does that work?
He's like, well, there's tiny cameras on one side of the car and it projects on the other
side of the car to make it look invisible.
Same technology.
It's kind of like how, it's like how office space use the heist from Superman 3.
They do it in such a good way, though, that I never even put two and two together because
like in the 30s, drugs and like monochaine is fitting of the times.
This is taking the same sort of like crazed man, but setting it in today's world, which
is the best use I think I've seen of updating the monsters.
It's a brilliant use of doing so it's like with the Chuckie reboot, the one with uproar
Plaza as a very young mother, yes, but instead of something possessing the doll, it's technology.
Yeah, you have a AI glitch that turns on people and it's like, okay, that's how you, Megan
before Megan.
Yeah, that's how you can modernize it.
Megan, oh, I broke Dan.
I love Megan.
I also love Megan, also Blumhouse, also in Brazil.
But so she walks away with this bag in hand and we get the glimpse of the suit and then
we linger on her face and then we roll credits.
There's this wonderful era of mystery and all I'm going to say is I am still waiting for
the invisible one.
It's all fine.
This should have been the Iron Man and then you toss in a mid-credits scene and credits
scene.
She's in a library.
Who does she run into?
None other than Rico Cotto, let the Brenna sounds begin.
That's my dark universe.
I mean, this is how, like I mentioned before, is that you need to focus on the singular monster
and the invisible man.
You need to make it a compelling story and it needs to be something that isn't shoe-horned
in.
That's what the mummy, that's where it failed is like we have to shove in the mummy story.
We have to shove in Checkland High.
You have 1999 is long ago, I know, but not that long ago.
And that is a beloved movie.
Of all of the ones to redo, I'm like you had a lot of intense fans that not only love Rick
and Evie, but love emo-tep.
So to just hard-write it, that's going to be regardless of classic monsters.
Just taking those two movies is a real hard sell.
I mean, you could make it in a way where like Brenna and Frazier Rachel Weiss, Captain
in Woods.
They're in a library.
She is a librarian.
They go to a library in the Captain in the Woods.
Full of monster books.
It writes so.
Brenna and Frazier is working on making sure that those shelves will never tip over anymore.
Never.
They've got metal bolts in between them and then lightning comes down, hits the metal bolts
and then suddenly their son Frankenstein's monster.
And Secret Agent comes in and be like, we need you to go to Transylvania.
My point still stands.
Yes, it does.
You create a monster movie with a protagonist who is going after the monster.
You don't make the monster the protagonist.
You make a story focused on that singular monster and then you can expand on it further.
Yeah, you have to deeply care about the non-monster characters.
We still have monster needs.
And so we're getting a series of standalone films that are, I guess I would say, twists
on the classics.
And that's fine.
Yeah, that's great.
They're actually lovely.
So we've seen some of them already this year and then we still have a couple more to
go.
So the first one is Lisa Frankenstein.
Yeah.
No, I can't.
I can't do that.
No, no, no, we bury the body.
Dan is wearing basically a Lisa Frankenstein costume.
Well, Lisa Frankenstein's monster.
It's the story of a teenage reverse bride.
It's taking the bride of Frankenstein and sort of flipping it out its head but with teenagers.
It's written by Diablo Cody of Jennifer's body and is the feature length of directorial
debut of Zelda Williams, daughter of Robin Williams.
Yes.
We've both seen it.
I think I can say that we both love it.
Yes.
I love the theaters.
I adore that movie.
And then the second one of the year was Abigail, which is a ballerina heist twist on Dracula's
daughter from the screen team of Radio Silence.
This movie starts off with Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, which the monster nerd in me was like,
wait, this is such a wonderful connection to both Dracula and the mummy, like the OGs,
because their opening credits feature the same.
Both of which have the same actress.
They do.
It's just Catherine Newton's monsterverse.
Yeah.
It was like, wait a minute.
If we're going to this sort of teenage version, are we going to do like a young Avengers
spin of monsters?
Cause I ain't mad at that.
No.
We're not.
We are still in a phase where these are all stand alone.
Yeah.
And that's okay.
The monsters have stood the test of time.
They're still being featured today.
They are.
We have one coming up in October.
Yes.
Do you know what the October one is?
Isn't that Brad Frankenstein?
No.
This October, we have Wolfman.
Oh.
I have high hopes for Wolfman because directed by Lee Wenell, who also directed Invisible Man.
Oh.
I know.
Comes out this month.
Spooky season.
And then we get another one.
Do you know the next one is?
What does your gut say?
I was going to say the Invisible Man.
Oh no.
It's not for R2.
No it's for R.
Oh right.
Yes.
No it's for R2.
Yes.
Which we got that one where fan buyer was on a boat.
The last voyage of Demeter?
Yeah.
I'm basically ticking through the list because we've got Frankenstein with Lisa Frankenstein.
We've got Dracula with Abigail.
We've got the Wolfman.
Now we're jumping to?
Jared Leto.
Yes.
We, Jared Leto is not in any of the new ones.
Nobody did play a blood sucking vampire.
No.
It's not more of a time anyway.
So that's what we get for this year.
And then next year we get The Bride with an exclamation point.
Which we did touch on last episode directed by Maga General and all.
I did a little further digging on the ones that we talked about last week because it is
Monster Week.
The plot of this in 1930s Chicago.
Oh Frankenstein asked Dr. Euphronius?
Where did Dr. Potorius grow?
Okay.
Anyway ask Dr. Euphronius to help create a companion.
They give a life to a murdered woman as The Bride, sparking romance, police interest,
and radical social change.
So she's leading the suffrage movement?
I don't know.
It's 1930s Chicago.
I did see that the makeup and prosthetics are being done by Nadia Stacey who won the Oscar
for poor things.
So I've got some hopes for this movie still.
I know that there was a lot of criticisms when the photos came out of Christian Bale.
Yeah.
Because there was like weird tattoos.
There's very Joker tattooed on his chest.
Yeah.
Remember someone was like the only thing he's missing is the damaged tattoo on his forehead.
I don't like that type of design and I don't think many people do.
I don't know what it says and I did look at photos and nor did I like research specifically
what it says.
It is on his chest and there is like a shirt flapping about.
So I'm wondering if it's a plot point or I don't know.
I'm hoping it's not featured too much because beyond that the design of both the Monster
and the bride is really cool and the colors are very beautiful.
Yeah.
We'll see how that one comes down.
And then you know, your buddy Guillermo del Toro, we get Frankenstein.
Yeah.
Which is another one of his beloved monsters.
One of the big gets that he's been gunning for.
Like there's been multiple projects at the Mountsmanis.
It's just one of like a dozen of them and the fact that he finally got Frankenstein is
huge.
A lot of that might have to do with when he made a fish caught one.
The shape of water.
Do you want to know the synopsis?
Yes.
Before you get into the synopsis, I want to guess the cast.
Oh, go for it.
I know that he loves Ron Proman.
I don't believe so.
That's his boy and him is a monster.
Fantastic.
It would be fantastic.
For Frankenstein, Dr. Franconstein, Tom Hiddelsen.
Oh, you're just going off a fun fan casting of Frankenstein.
Oh, I definitely am.
Yeah.
You'd be fantastic.
We talked about who the cast was a little bit last week.
And then Igor.
What makes you think there's an Igor in here?
Because you have to fit in Tom Jones somehow.
Actually, I do know some of the casting for it.
But yeah, because last week we had talked about Oscar Isaac as Dr. Franconstein.
Jacob Allordie of Saltburn is the monster.
Like Mia Goth is in there.
There's one we didn't talk about.
And I'm super excited because the synopsis, Dr. Pretorius, tracks down Frankenstein's
monster, who is believed to have died in a fire 40 years before in order to continue the
experiments of Dr. Victor Frankenstein.
He is making this a direct sequel to the OG Frankenstein.
To the OG.
But with Dr. Pretorius, do you want to know who's playing Dr. Pretorius?
I want to say, who's the guy that played Ben in Lost?
Oh, my God.
Christoph Waltz.
Yeah.
Oh, him in tiny glasses would be fantastic.
Now, Dan, this is his second movie of the classic monsters.
Do we need to see a Guillermo del Toro dark universe?
I'm not liking the idea of trying to link it all together.
So you don't want any universe?
I don't want the universe.
I want it out.
I want more Guillermo del Toro directing monster movies, classic monster movies.
Yeah, I would like him to do the-- no, no, we have the invisible man.
Well, no, because he has to do is no one.
I just want him to throw Abbot and Castello in.
I feel like he could do it in a really fun, weird way.
I think he could.
Guillermo del Toro.
That's the connection.
Abbotting is so.
Don't they do a biopic on them?
Exactly.
Yeah.
Imagine a Guillermo del Toro, Phantom of the Opera.
Yes!
Sorry.
Actually, that's where it is.
That's the one I want.
You're the Abbot in Castello.
Oh, it's perfect because when the Phantom causes so many issues and people have to come in,
that's where you bring in the two police officers, but really, detective Castello and officer
of Abbot.
Imagine the set design and imagine the makeup made for the Phantom.
The set design of his underground leader-- Phantom played by Doug Jones.
Yes.
I don't think we need to make a connected universe or a franchise.
I disagree.
Cool, hardly.
Maybe I just want more monster movies and a connected universe is how I think I'll get
them.
But I like their stories converging, not even because of Abbot in Castello and not even
because of like Frankenstein meets the Wolfman.
But I think there is a very fun lore.
I don't necessarily want to see them in like Teday's world, but there is a very fun sort
of gothic lore of you have Transylvania and then you have the werewolf of London.
I want 1800s Europe connection.
There's just so much you can do with it.
There's so much that you can pay homage to like with Lisa Frankenstein, there's so much
that's in there that's so fun.
And it doesn't just poke at Frankenstein and be like, look at this thing.
No, it takes itself very seriously in a funny way.
Yeah.
And you start going into other creatures as well and spoiler alert.
If you haven't seen it like at the very end, she's covered in bandages.
Right.
She's the mummy.
Oh, I went for bride, but yeah, you're right.
Yeah.
And there are moments in the film where you can kind of like see different monsters like
emerge throughout the film.
But these monsters are so well established that you can really play with it.
You can make it your own.
You can make it unique.
You can modernize it if you want to.
You can set it in a time period that serves the story and the monster even better.
So like Lisa Frankenstein is the eighties.
Yeah.
It looks like the new wolf man is going to be at least more modern day.
I don't know if it's like cell phones technology modern day from the trailer.
I don't know if you've seen the trailer, but the trailer should be like cool and gives
me a lot of hope.
Yeah.
It doesn't need to be connected to university if something comes of it great.
But honestly, we have so many great stories that can be created with these established
monsters that are already out there.
Well, guess what?
We're not done.
And while the cinematic dark universe has been put out of shelf, it seems that it's been
struck by lightning and is getting a whole new life as a theme park land.
Oh, yes.
So Universal Studios Orlando announced on June 20th of 2024.
So this year that the dark universe would be one of the lands in its upcoming epic universe
park.
Welcome to dark more.
Universal says that the journey to the dark universe begins the moment guests enter its
electrifying portal, which harnesses the dark energy of dark more as guests step inside
the same energy will pulsate through the entire village and connect at the top of Frankenstein
Manor, the towering focal point of the dark universe.
Listen, as a Disney princess girl through and through, but also a horror girl through and
through.
Let me tell you that a creepy, electrified manor in place of a castle actually has me
pretty jazzed.
Yeah, they could have easily gone for Dracula's castle.
It seems like a very obvious choice.
But how they use Dracula, even more fun.
How much do you know about the dark universe land about the dark universe land?
I knew that there were plans.
I don't know the details.
Well, we're going to take a trip to DOS stay-couse.
Ah, yeah.
Universal says that dark more is most ominous restaurant.
This establishment is a dining hall run by vampire familiars who size up unsuspecting
patrons to be part of the vampires feast surrounded by artwork and artifacts detailing
the history of the village's creatures of the night.
This can enjoy a menu of kabobs, burgers, sandwiches and more.
There's got to be steak on that menu, yeah?
Yeah, they have to.
And then they have one more sort of food drink offering, which is the burning blade tavern.
So they say that despite the blades of the windmills still smoldering and flaming periodically,
which is cool.
They're going to actually have the windmill on fire all the time.
Dark Moor's monster hunters have transformed this old fiery mill into their favorite hangout.
While you're enjoying your beverages, your burgers.
Best will hear stories of the infamous Hounds.
These are boastful hunters from beyond dark moor, all also rounded by impressive displays
of monster heads big consider trophies.
I'm trying to remember the name of this and I tried looking it up and I don't think
I found the right one.
At Universal Studios.
Just before the minions took over, there was a haunted house that was a year-round haunted
house.
Walking dead.
It was in the walking dead.
Or was this pre-walking dead?
This is pre-walking dead.
It was a castle that you could go through.
It probably was a classic monster.
Yeah, and I remember there being homages to classic monsters.
I remember going through it in 2015 actually.
Because if you go to Horror Nights.
Every year, there's always at least sort of one maze that has a spin or take on the classic
monsters.
I know there was like, "the mama me, it's the wolf man.
This year is bloodlines.
It's bright of Frankenstein.
Lady Dracula."
And another, there's three women who are all sort of like fighting each other as you're
going through.
Oh, there's like a wolf woman.
Really was excited for that one in theory.
I don't know how I feel about it.
Post walkthrough.
Okay, but there's going to be two rides in the universe.
Land.
Monsters Unchained.
Which is going to be apparently Universal's most terrifying attraction yet.
This state of the art dark ride takes guests deep into the catacombs of Frankenstein's
manner where Dr. Victoria Frankenstein conducts her twisted experiments.
In a vain display of genius, she invites her guests into her laboratory to witness a demonstration
of her ability to control monsters.
Better plans go awry when her attempts to control the most dangerous of monsters.
Dracula fails.
Unleashing a horde of enraged monsters.
Guests are then thrust into an intense ride through the darkness as they try to evade
the grasps of the wolf man, the mummy, the creature from the black lagoon, and the brides
of Dracula and many others.
Do you know who, Victoria Frankenstein is?
Who Victor Frankenstein is?
Victoria.
Yeah.
This is Victoria Frankenstein's experiments.
Oh, so she's the great, great granddaughter of Henry Frankenstein.
I'm actually really excited for this ride.
It looks like it'll have the mechanics of the Harry Potter sort of the thing when you go
through the castle.
They haven't come out and said that, but from the videos, that's what it looks like.
And then the animatronics are, they've showed some of them on video already, is real cool.
The wolf man in particular is really well done and seems more of a throwback to the classic
monster than anything.
I'm a little worried about how Frankenstein likes, but we'll get there.
We'll see.
I did find the ride.
It was called, well, it wasn't right.
It was actually a walkthrough.
It was a walkthrough.
Much like Horonites, yeah.
But a bigger, better scale.
It was called the House of Horrors.
Yeah.
And this was one that I specifically remember because I went through it during Halloween
Horonites.
This is 2015.
When I went through it, the creatures that they featured inside there were from the TV
show Face Off.
Oh, yeah.
I'm going to put your face in the picture.
Yeah.
The makeup competition.
And they featured like those, what those artists made in there, but they're really good.
They've done those maces a couple of times and those are always the most beautiful.
Now the reason why I keep thinking that it's in homage to a lot of the old monster films
is because they did feature some of them in there, but it was mostly there as a vehicle
to show off any horror films that they were doing.
I did find a list.
This is a very short list of like what they featured in there, but they included the mummy,
the wolf man, Frankenstein, Nosferatu, but they also featured Norman Bates.
Chucky was in there.
Norman Bates.
And it's just kind of a vehicle of just like a universal prop, or a prop.
And I remember when I went in there once they showed at the beginning, when you're waiting
in line, they show like props and stuff from like horror films.
And I remember seeing the frozen monster human thing from the thing.
Oh, yeah.
And they featured it right there as like it was in this big glass tomb thing.
I love those things.
It served exactly what it was supposed to do.
It's just like you feature just horror in general, but like they definitely leaned into
a lot of the classic horror films.
I wish I would have been able to see that.
We've got one more ride called the Curse of the Werewolf, which universal says deep in
the woods that sit on the edge of darkmore.
Guests will find Curse of the Werewolf, a spinning family coaster inspired by the wolf
man.
Guests will enter an encampment of the guild of mystics where they'll be greeted by
Maliva, who is from our original wolf man, Bella's mom.
The guilds all knowing seer and leader, who warns them that they bear the mark of the werewolf.
Guests then board a wagon and venture into the forest, racing to escape the werewolves
before they become ones themselves.
This sounds a little bit like a spinning version of the Hippogriff ride in universal studio
is Hollywood.
Again, not mad.
Both of these seem very fun and a little scary, but I'm super excited that they're actually
calling back to the wolf man and the actual classic monsters.
Something that I think is also fun is that you can get a makeover.
You're going to the Bippity Boppity boutique, but it's a monster theme.
They say that monster makers have converted Dr. Pretorius's infamous old lab into a parlor
to continue the spirit of his demented experiments and skilled artisans use their talents to transform
guests out of appearance so they can showcase their fandom for the universal monsters.
There's also a shop called Pretorius' Scientific Outities, so we are really giving Dr. Pretorius
some love.
Yeah, is there like a photo op area where it looks like you're in a little glass jar?
Yeah, the glass display is like a tiny person inside there.
Made from a seed.
I don't know.
Honestly, all of the video and things that I've seen come out of it, I'm very, very excited
for it in a little sad we're not getting here.
So I guess this to me feels like an almost third version of a cinematic universe by way
of sort of a pirates of the Caribbean.
So if this park does well and takes off, is that a universe?
I think so.
They say that the dark universe is complete and not going to happen, which is fine because
universal's dark universe is a mouthful to me.
I think just having the universal monsters featured in the parks is a really smart idea.
Oh yeah.
Push for that all the time and that's one of the main staples that universal is known for.
Even here at Universal Studios Hollywood, we have the Frankenstein parking lot.
Yeah, it's the most convenient one.
Yeah.
I mean, they're walking around the park.
I don't know that it's all here but they definitely are now because we're in spooky season.
But having a presence in the park just makes sense.
I was trying to think of a good name because it's not the dark universe is a bad name.
But like I said, universal dark universe, you're saying universe twice in the same sentence.
And I was like, oh, monsterverse would be fun.
Yeah, I feel like monsterverse has been taken, but I'm sure it has been.
I have zero doubt, but it made me giggle because you have the monsterverse cinematic universe.
So you have still an MCU.
You have the MCU.
That's all of what I have on the various universes that universal has come to do.
And like we've said, you don't care.
You could care less whether they make one heartbreaking.
I'm going to fight the good fight.
I just want good monster movies.
I can't have both.
I'm sure you can.
I'm not saying that everything should be connected.
It's fair.
I want the good monster movie first if you make a sequel of it.
Great.
If you connect together well.
Great.
The Iron Man movie because it's a good Iron Man movie.
And not because it opens up in crepes the MCU.
We love Tony Stark.
We don't actually care about Iron Man.
Like, I mean, we do, but not really.
Yeah.
Like, we want Cap to be back together with Peggy.
Bucky.
No.
I don't know how this didn't get made because you have all of the core characters there
that are interesting characters.
But I want to see made just because I saw this at Universal City Walk.
I saw the minions.
No, get out.
The minions dressed as all the classic Universal Monsters.
Make that a movie.
Illumination.
Grooo has the resources to make monsters.
Oh my god.
He's Dr. Pretorias.
Yes.
Done.
Feezy.
Boom.
That's really not a terrible picture.
That is just bitch.
We'll be five.
It's not your worst idea.
I'm not the biggest fan of minions.
I will admit it.
But honestly, I watched that movie.
Yeah.
Who's your favorite monster?
The Gilman.
Not just because you didn't episode on it.
I didn't episode on it because I like the Gilman.
Fine.
I mean, listen.
I went with the only lady in the bunch, so.
Gil lady.
Gil.
There's your sequel.
Yeah.
Son of Gilman.
Mm-hmm.
That's the sequel to Shape of Water.
Yeah, it is.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let's wrap this up.
You have said your piece on monsters.
I have.
They deserve their own universe.
It would be my favorite universe.
We're looking forward to more monster movies.
We have a lot more in store in the future.
That is the end of our show.
If you want to connect with us on these socials,
we have our Instagram page that is at How Did This Not Get Made.
We also have our Twitter, which is really just the same thing.
Is it one tweet?
Or the image?
Whatever I tweet, I put on the Instagram, whatever I Instagram,
I put on the tweets.
Our Twitter is @hgtngm.
And then we have our TikTok as well.
Our TikTok is actually going to be a little different from our Twitter
and Instagram.
If we start dancing, I will end the show immediately
and burn it all to the ground.
But you can actually see--
Unless you tell us, too.
You can see video of us just snippets of us
recording the episodes.
You're going to see our faces.
You'll see my bare legs from the knee down.
You have pants on.
I wore shorts in the other one.
Are you wolf, man, and ow?
I wore shorts in the other episode.
I connected it all back.
And I did not like it.
You did wear shorts in the other episode.
It was a bad idea.
We've got socials.
We're doing things.
We've got these two episodes in the can.
Yep.
And we'll continue on with the show.
Bye, bye, bye.
He did the monster, man.
It was a graveyard, man.