We've known for a while that Universal Pictures has decided to put together a brand new franchise of monster movies meant to be a part of a shared universe. This morning, the company announced Dark Universe. While at first glance that might seem like another name for Justice League Dark, it's anything but. It's the shared name for all of its classic monsters series of films.
According to an announcement from Universal this morning, the new branding has already happened, but it will officially debut when Tom Cruise's big movie The Mummy hits theaters on June 9. If you've been trying to keep tabs on this whole shared universe, it's been a little hard, but the big announcement today also notes that Bill Condon's Bride of Frankenstein will be the next movie released in the franchise. We were supposed to be getting a movie in the monster universe in 2018, but as part of this announcement, we've also learned that Universal will be holding off until 2019 for its next movie. Bride of Frankenstein will be released on Thursday, February 19, 2019. (February used to be a death month for films, but that has changed in recent years, and Bill Condon is a decently safe bet, having just directed the popular Beauty and the Beast.)
This shared monster movie universe has been a thing for quite a while. When Universal first announced a slew of monster movies, there was plenty of speculation related to which movie would come first. Universal has a slew of monsters currently at its disposal, like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, Creature Of The Black Lagoon, The Invisible Man, Bride Of Frankenstein, and The Mummy. So far, Javier Bardem will play Frankenstein's monster. Johnny Depp will play the Invisible Man, and we've already seen Tom Cruise as Nick Morton and Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll. If you'd like to check out the a-listers already signed on to the universe, you need go no further than the image, below.
Beyond casting choices, we also know that the bent of these flicks will be different than the big budget superheroes we will be used to as, a Universal chair explained that occasionally, "you need evil to fight evil" in the Dark Universe. Each movie is set to be connected by Prodigium, an organization run by Dr. Henry Jekyll that will track and study the monsters in our world. It should provide an easy way to connect the movies, but since The Mummy hasn't even been released yet, we have no idea how well these flicks will do once they are unleashed into the world.
If you'd like to know everything that we know about Dark Universe, you can take a look at our full guide. In addition, here's what else will be joining The Mummy in theaters this summer.
