The Last Voyage of the Demeter has finally sailed into theaters, and while director André Øvredal must be given credit where credit is due for offering up a wickedly original adaptation from the original Dracula novel, it’s unfortunately hard to deny that the film fell unprecedentedly short of its massive potential. Even for viewers who can appreciate movies for the pieces rather than the sum, it’s nothing short of frustrating.
But, for all we know, The Last Voyage of the Demeter could have just been a case of first-movie jitters for a new era of big screen ambitions for Universal’s cast of illustrious creatures. After all, those of you that have already made it to the end of the Demeter‘s gore-soaked voyage know that this is one story that’s not quite ready to end.
And, with Scream VI‘s Tyler Gillett, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, and Chad Villella apparently cooking up a Universal Monster film known only as Dracula’s Daughter, it’s no great leap to theorize that maybe The Last Voyage of the Demeter was far from the last we’ve seen of this particular canon.
But producer Brad Fischer knows better than to fan those flames. In an interview with ComicBook, he to indulge any sort of rumor surrounding follow-ups or crossovers with Radio Silence’s aforementioned film, and instead chose to concentrate on the delectable, yet-uncharted waters that the Dracula mythos can offer up for storytelling, possible instances of connectivity notwithstanding.
“Look, Universal rightly has a crown jewel in their Monsters Universe. And the extent to which those stories as they’re coming to life again can find points of intersection, that’s really exciting. The fact that nobody had ever told the story of what happened on the ship is just a testament to how much storytelling opportunity and genre opportunity there is in not just Dracula, but that whole [universe].”
Of course, with a rather dire 38 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the moment, any franchise intentions that may have existed could be dead in the water at this point, and that would be a shame; given The Last Voyage of the Demeter‘s many strengths that were left so tragically dormant and mishandled, it would be a genuine injustice if the skeleton of that ethos never got another shot.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter is now playing in theaters.