It may not be applicable to call it a “purge,” but Universal has dropped yet another high-profile project and people who follow such moves are starting to take notice. Yesterday, it was a planned Ouija board feature that the studio decided to nix after the horror project bounced from director to director and toiled for years in developmental hell. Weeks before that, Universal walked away from a Clue remake, and before that the studio also decided not to greenlight Ron Howard’s adaptation of The Dark Tower or Guillermo del Toro's At The Mountains of Madness.
The latest project unplugged by Universal? Wicked Lovely, an film version of Melissa Marr’s best-selling novels that American Psycho director Mary Harron planned to direct for Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Picture Show Productions. THR says in its article that Marr’s story "doesn’t suit [the studio’s] needs." Like every other novel hitting the shelves these days, Wicked sounds like a spin on the Twilight saga, with a female, teenage protagonist who interacts with mythical creatures, this case being faeries.
It’s hard to fault a studio for deciding not to pour money into a picture that they don’t think will work, either from a creative or a financial perspective. It is odd that Universal seems to be going over its books and cutting so many dead-weight features, however. It does make you wonder where the disconnect exists. Who thought a Clue remake or a Ouija horror movie were good ideas in the first place? Still, better that these mediocre ideas die in the developmental stage, especially if it means Universal can shift attention and resources to better projects.
