Van Helsing Kills the Dark Universe

Courtesy of The Playlist, here’s an interesting passage from screenwriter Eric Heisserer regarding the failed Universal Dark Universe and the reasons *why* it failed. It’s nothing we didn’t already know, but it’s funny, so I’ll share it here.

Says Heisserer: “It was a very strange experience [working on the Dark Universe]. There was certainly a big brain trust of writers around the table. You had a lot of voices and none of them could agree on much. Much like when I’d visit my relatives for Thanksgiving and everyone’s arguing with each other…You had some people saying, ‘Should our monsters all be villains in these movies or can they all be heroes?’ And someone else would say, ‘We can build the plane when we fly it.’ And it’s me and Jon Spaihts at the table going, ‘That’s a terrible analogy. We don’t want to be on that plane. What are we doing here?’”

And in regards to his decision to pen a new take on VAN HELSING: “This is sort of a terrible motivation, but we were also like ‘You know? I don’t think some of these movies are going to work at all. So what if we create the character that kills the monsters in the movies that don’t work?’”.

A supernatural hitman taking out the stars of lousy movies? I’d be down for that. But considering they supposedly wanted Channing Tatum for the Van Helsing role, I’m glad that movie never got made.

Oh, wait. There’s still talk of a Universal Monsters movie with Tatum. Dangit. Thought we’d dodged a bullet.

By The Evil Cheezman

WAYNE MILLER is the owner and creative director of EVIL CHEEZ PRODUCTIONS (www.evilcheezproductions.blogspot.com, www.facebook.com/evilcheezproductions), specializing in theatrical performances and haunted attractions. He has written, produced and directed (and occasionally acted in) over a dozen plays, most of them in the Horror and Crime genres. His first novel, THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT CHRISTOPHER: WEREWOLF, is available for purchase at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/734763 MORTUI VELOCES SUNT!

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