New Details on Universal Pictures' Modern Day VAN HELSING Movie
Van Helsing is one of several Universal Monster movie characters that the studio is rebooting for a new generation. This whole Universal Monster cinematic universe will launch with Tom Cruise's The Mummy, and after that we'll see films about The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man, Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, and more.
There's not much concrete information about how the stories will play out in these films, but we do know that they are all set in a modern world, which is something I'm not a fan of, but I'm not the guy making the decisions over there. All of these monster characters will be able to cross over with each other, though, which could be cool if done right.
During a recent interview with Collider, screenwriter Jon Spaihts talked about his vision of Van Helsing, explaining:
"It’s a new creation, so it doesn’t owe much of a debt to prior films, but it is still a very romantic departure from the character as incepted in Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, where it was a Dutch doctor who figures out a very surprising answer to an odd medical question. This is a monster hunter with encyclopedic knowledge, but it’s set in the present day and it’s just filled with good stuff I’m not allowed to talk about. But I’m very excited about this new incarnation of Van Helsing, and I hope that as the Universal Monsters Cinematic Universe begins to take flight, we’ll see him cropping up in other stories, as well."
He sure seems excited about what he and the team he's working with are doing with the character. I'm sure it will be better than what Stephen Sommers did with the character in his terrible 2004 film. When previously talking about his plans for Ven Helsing, he said it was inspired by Mad Max and added:
"I can say that the decision that a lot of us made was to go and just write the best movie we could in our own corner and make sure it’s good on its own…and didn’t necessarily need to link arm-in arm-with anybody else. And to be tonally different from the other films. One may be a little bit more comedic, action-adventure-y, one can be very much a traditional horror piece. That kind of thing. And then we’ll see what happens as the projects evolve and we all get a chance to convene and talk, and make sure the movies feel like they’re all in the same world."
He also talked about the series of monster films that they're making, saying they will be "legit terrifying."
"Yes, it’s not a campy series. Even to go back to the original Universal Monster movies with Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff, they were not really terrifying even then. Maybe sensibilities were different and people were easier to scare at the time, but they’re slow and they’re parlor stories, for the most part. They’re not terrifying, in modern terms. We’ve gotten really good at scaring people in movies. So, the nice thing about this Mummy is that it has the swashbuckling action-adventure character of a modern epic action movie, but it’s legit terrifying. It will scare you."
I really do hope these new movies with be scary! To be honest, I'm expecting more action and adventure than I am horror, but if they can pull it all off and manage to terrify audiences in the process... awesome!
As far as casting goes for these films, I'll just remind you that The Invisible Man will star Johnny Depp, Frankenstein will star Javier Bardem, and The Wolf Man might star Dwayne Johnson.