Universal’s classic monster movies were really the first cinematic universe, and while an attempt to reboot the franchise into an MCU-like connected world flopped pretty hard, Universal has still found success by using these classic characters in different ways by letting unique filmmakers find a fresh take. And now the team known as Radio Silence, who brought back the Scream franchise, is looking to do the same with a Universal Monster.
Deadline reports that Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett are set to direct an Untitled Universal Monster Movie, with their Radio Silence partner Chad Villella on board to produce. Apparently, the trio was circling this monster movie project shortly after completing Scream 5, but after that movie was a hit they were convinced to come back and turn around Scream VI in short order. That movie has become the biggest in the franchise’s history.
The announcement indicates that the new movie will deal with one of the classic Universal Monster characters, but beyond that, the movie could be literally anything. There are no requirements from Universal as far as what the genre or rating of the movie should be, so the team could do basically anything. Having said that, Radio Silence has found most of its success with more traditional horror, though movies like the recent Scream films and the absolutely delightful Ready or Not also had their share of action and comedy, so things could really go anywhere.
While Universal attempted to launch a connected universe around its horror properties with Tom Cruise’s The Mummy, the film was not the breakout hit that the studio was looking for, and the larger plans stalled out. Since then, we’ve seen much more success come from standalone projects like The Invisible Man, and the horror-comedy Renfield, including an over-the-top Nicolas Cage as Dracula, is set to hit theaters this week.
Certainly, any fan of horror is going to be excited by the idea of Radio Silence diving into a movie based on one of the great monster movie characters of all time. While we have no idea what project they could be tackling, there are plenty of options, from Frankenstein to the Wolfman to The Creature From the Black Lagoon. We could even see them take on a monster we’ve seen recently, as it seems likely their take on The Mummy or The Invisible Man would be quite different from the ones we’ve seen.
Whatever the secret Universal Monster movie is, it already has a script, so we could see it going into production sooner rather than later. Once that happens we’ll almost certainly learn what it is. The only question then is what happens with Scream 7, as this means that film, which is almost certainly going to happen, will likely need to find new directors.
