Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolf Man, Dracula, and more of the classic Universal monsters are coming to TV in a new Netflix show from Scream 7 writer/director Kevin Williamson which he describes as an “adult Vampire Diaries.”
“Netflix and Universal were very kind to let me go direct Scream 7 and put some projects on hold and now I’m focused on those,” Williamson tells Esquire. “The one I’m writing right now is a show. You might call it an adult Vampire Diaries. It’s based in the Universal monster land. I get to play with some of those characters like Dracula and Frankenstein and The Wolf Man and have fun there.”
Universal’s classic monsters of the ’30s through the ’50s formed one of the first prototypical ‘cinematic universes’ with numerous crossover films. However, attempts to revive what Universal has sometimes dubbed the ‘Dark Universe’ have proven unfruitful. The best version of the concept is 1987’s somewhat dated but still charming cult classic The Monster Squad, which pitted a team of Universal monsters led by Dracula against a gang of horror movie obsessed teenagers. It’s more of a B-movie romp than a filmmaking achievement, but it’s the only one that’s made a dent in the last, oh, 40 years or so.
The last time Universal took a sincere swing at developing a modern version of the idea, it resulted in 2017’s Tom Cruise starring reboot of The Mummy, which sank so hard it essentially tanked what was planned as a series of films that would culminate in an Avengers style crossover movie.
I’ve been a fan of the Universal monsters basically my whole life – one of the first movies I remember begging to watch as a very young kid was 1931’s Frankenstein – and I’m not exactly enthused about the continued swings at a shared universe revival. Setting aside the melodrama of the Vampire Diaries comparison, it feels like missing the forest for the trees.
Universal’s original monster movies didn’t start out with the intent of turning into a proto-cinematic universe. It happened somewhat organically many years into Universal’s monster movie tradition. What made it work was the history of classic films that stand on their own two legs.
Kind of like how 2012’s Avengers, the work that so many failed cinematic universes have tried to copy, followed a series of films establishing the characters in their own right before mashing them together.
There’s no word yet on when Williamson’s Universal monsters show will premiere. In the meantime, check out the best Netflix shows you can watch right now, and stay up to date on all the most exciting new TV shows you need to know about.
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