Universal Announces Release Dates for New Monster Movies
by EG
Disney has its Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Warner Bros' has the DC Universe, so it stands to reason that other studios would be searching for a way to interconnect film franchises into lucrative extended franchises. Universal happens to have a catalog of ficitional characters already in its library that is well suited to a new-fangled cinematic universe - even if many of those characters are close to 100 years old - and the studio plans to use those characters to its best advantage,
The first of Universal's Monster Cinematic Universe movies will be a reboot of The Mummy starring Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe, which will be released in June of 2017, and another film in the franchise will be released in April 2018. The studio has not yet committed to which film will get the 2018 release date, but popular speculation puts a reboot of The Invisible Man starring Johnny Depp in that slot.
A third film will debut in 2019, but there's no word on which monster character will be the third in the line up. Potential projects include those involving Dracula, The Wolfman or the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
The new Universal monster franchise is being overseen by Alex Kurtzman (Transformers) and Chris Morgan (Furious 7).