Dracula Untold enjoyed a decent opening over the weekend, notching an estimated $23.4 million (but not earning enough to knock off David Fincher’s chilling Gone Girl in its second weekend). If audiences continue to support the period-horror-drama, a sequel is possible, though director Gary Shore confirmed that it likely would be part of a larger Universal Studios Shared Monster Universe, and he talked about changes he had to do to make Dracula Untold fit that model.
While admitting that it was his sole focus to complete this one movie and to "be able to tell this story from beginning to end," Gary Shore did tell ScreenRant that when they went back to do reshoots for Dracula Untold, they decided to find some way to tie it into possible future films. I have ideas as to what scenes Shore is talking about, though I’ll hide those thoughts underneath his quote, in a spoiler section, so stop reading if you still plan to see Dracula Untold. Shore told the site:
Looking at this one, they see this as their monster universe. That’s their catalogue. They want to be able to tap into that and make use of it. How they are going to create that architecture, I’m not quite sure. … When we were in post-production, they had announced that they were going to do something with this universe, which was around the same time we were going back for reshoots. So it made sense to be able to try and tie it in some way."
Did you see Dracula Untold? If so, you probably know the reshot scene Gary Shore is talking about. It’s at the very end of the movie. It takes place centuries after the events of the film, where the now-cursed version of Luke Evans’ Vlad the Impaler stalks a modern woman who resembles his beloved (also played by the beautiful Sarah Gadon). As Vlad slips into a crowd while carrying on a conversation with this woman, we spy Charles Dance’s character – described in the press notes as Master Vampire. This is the man who "blessed" Vlad with the powers of Dracula. This is the man who appears to be putting a Monster Team together. His final words are, "Let the games begin."
The idea behind this scene suggests that Charles Dance’s character (pictured above) is the Nick Fury of this horror series, the man who once had the power of Dracula, but needs a team of super-powered monsters to go after a larger foe. Is it Satan? It could be. But this scene stuck out like a sore thumb, and appeared to be included just to link to future movies in this monster shared universe. Now, we know why.
