Honestly, even one massive shared universe feels like too much to handle. Yet, after the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC started churning out blockbusters for its own questionable DC Extended Universe. With basically every superhero spoken for, Universal wanted to get in on the action, announcing plans to create its own Dark Universe, which consisted of all the classic monster movies. The studio had planned to make movies with the Mummy, the Bride of Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, the Wolfman, Van Helsing, and keep the door open for others including Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.
Disney and Marvel miraculously somehow pulled it off, and even then, half of the MCU movies are garbage. Then, despite delivering one quality product with Wonder Woman this year, the DC Extended Universe has an abysmal 50 percent average on Rotten Tomatoes. So it seemed dubious at best for Universal to even attempt something this ambitious when it technically launched the franchise with Tom Cruise's The Mummy earlier this year.
And it turns out every logical person who thought it was a bad idea was right! The Mummy was a box office flop, earning just over $400 million worldwide for about a $75 million loss. It was also torn apart by critics, who pretty universally called it an early end for the banner. One major problem was Tom Cruise, who reportedly took control of the movie on set and ran it straight into the ground.
Which brings us to now. The Dark Universe has been put on hold, with the Universal president of production Peter Cramer telling The Hollywood Reporter:
"We've learned many lessons throughout the creative process on Dark Universe so far, and we are viewing these titles as filmmaker-driven vehicles, each with their own distinct vision. We are not rushing to meet a release date and will move forward with these films when we feel they are the best versions of themselves."
Yeah, they've learned that an obviously bad idea was a bad idea.
If that's not enough, Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan, who were hired to develop the monster universe, have also left the project.
Maybe this is a good time for the Dark Universe to stay in the grave.
