The Universal Monsters Dark Universe Lives Again with the Help of Blumhouse and Leigh Wannell

Two years ago, Universal had big plans to relaunch all of their "Monsters" properties as part of a new shared cinematic universe that was going to be known as The Dark Universe. There was a logo and everything. Then people got a load of the first film in the series, The Mummy, and any potential enthusiasm for such an endeavor was immediately squashed.

One by one, Universal cancelled plans to make Bride of Frankenstein with Javier Bardem, The Invisible Man with Johnny Depp, and Jekyll & Hyde with Russell Crowe, and the whole thing sort of languished for a while. Even The Mummy director Alex Kurtzman felt comfortable enough about the whole fiasco to speak ill of Universal.

Now, however, it looks as if they're going to go in an entirely different direction with things. Universal has decided that their monsters don't need a shared cinematic universe, but rather they need new blood to make them feel fresh and—heaven forbid—scary again. In this quest, they're turning to their on-staff master of horror Jason Blum, whose Blumhouse Productions has been a hit machine for the studio thanks to their low-budget, huge box office formula that has worked time and time again.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the first film in this new venture will be a Johnny Depp-less Invisible Man film to be written and directed by Leigh Wannell (Saw, Upgrade). This will hopefully refocus their efforts on making scary horror films again, as these monsters have been viewed as a joke since virtually all of them met Abbott & Costello in the 50s.

So long as they take things one step at a time this go around and don't put several carts in front of any one horse, they might actually succeed in making this a reality down the line. If not, they can always reboot and try again in two years, just like they did this time.