Paul Feig Discusses His DARK ARMY Universal Monster Movie Saying It'll Be a "True Monster Film"
I’m not entirely convinced that director Paul Feig’s Universal Monster film Dark Army will be a great movie. I hope it is, but seeing what he did with his Ghostbusters film doesn’t spark much confidence that he can handle the monster genre. Who knows, maybe he’ll surprise me!
At the time of the announcement, it was revealed that Dark Army would “tie into the Monster universe” and that it “will include characters from Universal’s classic monster library and original characters created by Feig.” In the past, the filmmaker wanted to make it clear that this will be more of a monster movie than a horror film.
During a recent interview with Collider, Feig opened up a little bit more about his Dark Army movie, and when expressing his excitement for it, he said:
“I wrote a draft and got thoughts from the studio, and now I’m in the middle of a rewrite on that right now, and so hopefully that’ll be my next movie. If it’s not, it’ll be the one after whatever I do next. But yeah, I’m very excited about it, too. It’s just, you want to get it right.”
He went on to talk about how he wants his film to be like those classic monster films that many of us love. He also mentions that his film will be a true monster movie:
“I really want this to bring the same feeling that those old monster movies that I loved growing up watching [did]. I’m not as interested in doing a horror movie as I am in doing a true monster film. So, hopefully that will see the light of day. You never know in Hollywood these days, but I love it. I’m very excited about it. I’m excited about the characters that I’ve created and about some of the ones that I’ve been able bring over from the old movies.”
If he can actually capture that magic of those original monster films… awesome! I have been wanting to see these new monster movies do that, but so far, that doesn’t seem like the direction the studio wants to go. He previously talked about the style of monster movie he wants to make, saying:
“I’m a mega-fan of those old horror movies. I call them more monster movies than horror movies, quite frankly. Horror movies to me now represent slasher and that kind of thing, which I don’t enjoy at all. I loved those old movies like ‘Frankenstein.’ ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ is probably one of the greatest movies of all-time. I love that movie so much, and there are some things from that movie that I’m using in this new movie ‘Dark Army.’ But I really want to do a James Whale-ish, modern day version of a monster movie that is about these characters. What I love about monsters is they’re outsiders, it’s just the most extreme version of outsiders. Frankenstein is one of the most sympathetic characters ever to be put on the screen, even though he does terrible things. He’s just looking for acceptance and love. If you read Mary Shelley’s book he’s a pure spirit who becomes evil because he just gets shit on constantly. Everybody just can’t get past the way he looks, and it turns him murderous. (laughs) That’s the extreme version of that kind of thing, but I love that feel. I want to bring that ookie spookie feel back to movies, but with these monsters you root for and understand at the same time. I finished the first draft of the script and I’m so excited about it! I’m literally on fire about getting this movie made as soon as I can. I turned it into the Dark Universe people last week and they loved it. Now it’s going over to the heads of Universal, so we’ll see.”
That’s great, and I hope that’s the kind of film that he makes! I also hope the story isn’t set in modern-day. These monster movies should be period pieces. The designs of the monsters are also important in capturing the spirit of the original monster movies. When talking about the other monster movies currently in development at Universal, the director said:
“It’s really smart, because I mean, I can’t wait for Invisible Man, but that looks like a straight-up great horror movie, you know? But then the fact that I just read that they’re going to do this like monster musical, and that’s great, too. I mean, the monster world is just so great. It’s nice to see it just kind of get interpreted a million different ways. So I’m excited about mine and about whatever else they’re going to do.”
It’ll be interesting to see what Feig actually has envisioned for Dark Army. It’s a cool concept! I just hope that he can pull it off and actually create the kind of monster movie that he says he wants to create.