Alex Kurtzman Says Universal Monster Cinematic Universe Will Still Be Horror Movies

Remember how Universal was going to make their own cinematic universe for the old classic monsters in the studio's library, like The Mummy, Frankenstein, and The Wolfman? Well despite the fact that there haven't been any recent updates about any of the movies that are supposed to be in that universe, apparently the whole thing is still happening.

Nearly a year ago, Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley said that the movies would be more action-adventure than horror:

"So, we took a good, hard look at it, and we settled upon an idea, which is to take it out of the horror genre, put it more in the action-adventure genre and make it present day, bringing these incredibly rich and complex characters into present day and reimagine them and reintroduce them to a contemporary audience."

It seems like there's a little bit of confusion in the studio ranks, because Alex Kurtzman, one of the heads of the story group created for this new endeavor, had something different to say at the TCAs. According to Collider, he said:

I think there was some lost in translation quality to the way it was received, because I promise you there will be horror in these movies. It is our life goal to make a horror movie. The tricky part is actually how you combine horror with either adventure or suspense or action and be true to all the genres together. In some way, Mummy, dating all the way back to the Karloff movie, was the first to do that. It was the first to combine horror with — I wouldn’t say action, but certainly a lot of suspense. So it’s more about how you blend the different elements and stay true to each one, but there will definitely be horror in the monster movies…We will hopefully serve it up good and plenty.

So as Free predicted, the truth lies somewhere in the middle of all of this: there will be horror elements and action-adventure elements, and it's about finding the balance between the two. But it seems like Kurtzman is going out of his way to clarify that horror will definitely be a big part of these films, so we'll see who ends up being more correct when this is all said and done: the guy who's working on these movies, or the boss he has to answer to.