You asked me about the Dark Universe, if you're gonna make a movie of The Mummy, why the fuck do you need Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe?! As soon as you announce that Tom Cruise is in The Mummy, you know you're not going to see a horror picture! It's not gonna be The Mummy, it's going to be the Tom Cruise Show. 'What's happening is the studios now will make a film for $150, $200 million but they're afraid to take risks. History seems to support his argument, since Universal monster movies like Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy made stars out of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and not the other way around. Landis' problem with The Mummy seems to be that the film shouldn't be about name stars making the Dark Universe films, but about the monsters themselves.

Hyde, the leader of the Prodigium – a secret organization that's long been in the business of finding and containing monsters.ĭirected by Alex Kurtzman, The Mummy not only takes its inspiration from the 1932 film starring Boris Karloff, it takes advantage of Cruise's experience as an action movie star, and even mixes in some comedic exchanges between Morton and his explorer colleague, Chris Vail (Jake Johnson) in scenes that are reminiscent of the back-and-forth between David Kessler (David Naughton) and Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne) in An American Werewolf in London. The Dark Universe, of course, officially kicked off earlier this month with a reboot of The Mummy, which stars Tom Cruise as a soldier of fortune who is cursed by a mummified princess (Sofia Boutella) after her sarcophagus is unearthed after 5,000 years. I think, y'know, maybe that's one of the problems with Universal's Dark Universe is that it isn't respectful of the monsters.' was Abbot & Costello Meets Frankenstein, which is actually a very funny movie and very respectful of the monsters. House of Dracula, House of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man - you know what they used to call those? Monster rallies! (laugh) And then of course, one of the great ironies is what was considered.

'If you remember with Universal back in the '40s, once they made all their classics, they started cross-pollinating.

John landis monsters in the movies