Chris McKay knows a thing or two about operating within the confines of a shared universe having directed the critical and commercial smash hit The LEGO Batman Movie, while he’s also proven to be a dab hand at horror looking at the widespread acclaim to have greeted Renfield ahead of its release this weekend, so he’s better-placed to speak out on the ignominious failure of the Dark Universe than you might think.
Kevin Feige may have changed the face of cinema forever when he crafted the Marvel Cinematic Universe and built an interconnected series of stories that all dovetail together over the course of years, but Hollywood’s elephant graveyard is littered with the bones of those that tried to replicate the formula, only to fall flat on their respective faces.
Universal’s attempt was by far the most heinous, though, with Tom Cruise’s The Mummy bombing spectacularly and gaining a reputation as one of the worst blockbusters to come along in a long while, leaving the studio looking exceedingly dumb when it was forced to abandon plans that involved Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Angelina Jolie, and more.
Speaking to SlashFilm, McKay opined on the disaster of the Dark Universe, and he made a salient point.
“I think that everyone, even if you are in a Marvel universe or a shared universe situation, you should always just focus on that movie. Make a good version of that movie, regardless of whether it’s a sequel or the trilogy or whatever, just concentrate on that.
I think sometimes where movies go wrong is where they’re trying to do too much. The Dark Universe thing could’ve worked there. There’s compelling … who wouldn’t want to see Angelina Jolie play Bride of Frankenstein or Javier Bardem play Frankenstein’s Monster? That would be really cool. I think, when you try to also do all these other things and you haven’t established what the tone is, what the world is, I think that’s where things go wrong.”
There’s no point running before you’ve learned to walk without knowing if audiences are even interested in coming along for the ride, something the bigwigs really should have taken into account before The Mummy was declared dead on arrival.