2004’s “Van Helsing” and 1999’s “The Mummy” celebrated milestone anniversaries this year, as Universal continues to re-tool is monster movie IP.
Seven years removed from the studio’s attempt at the interconnected “Dark Universe,” the standalone movies have been hit or miss.
“Wolf Man” in January will be a big test for the audience appetite for these movies, including a potential “Van Helsing” reboot.
Hi everyone, welcome back to The Traverse. I recently returned from a lovely honeymoon so thanks for baring with the lack of publishing. I hope to get back to a regular schedule this month, but wanted to ease back into it with a quick and fun piece in the spirit of the Halloweekend. Thanks for reading!
The focus of this newsletter (for the most part) is looking at the business of media franchises and IP , what goes right and wrong with them, and fandom’s response, good and bad. Universal’s many eras of its monster IP is no different; in the spirit of Halloween, and to satiate my desire to write about a certain childhood favorite, that’s what I’ll be looking at today.
Over the summer I revisited a favorite for 11-year old me: 2004’s Stephen Sommers-directed “Van Helsing.” It turned 20 this year and its star, Hugh Jackman, was back on the big screen as Wolverine in “Deadpool and Wolverine,” which compelled me to rewatch this much derided flop — but one I believe is an absolute banger.
Look, I know this movie is not necessarily “good,” at least by most indications: 24% Rotten Tomatoes critic score and 57% audience score (not that that’s worth much); a B grade from CinemaScore, which is respectable but more on par with polarizing horror films of today like “The Substance” and “Terrifier 3” than with crowd-pleasing action blockbusters; on a $160 million budget, it earned $300 million globally and is considered a financial failure.
But I loved it when I was younger, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I still loved it, flaws and all. Hugh Jackman plays a monster hunter that turns into a werewolf and fights Dracula, an appealing premise on its own. It’s a convoluted movie with an often garish script, but as I wrote in my Letterboxd review, it’s 2000s action-adventure bullshit at its finest. And I believe it has more personality and visual flare than most big-budget tentpoles today.
More recently, I revisted 1999’s “The Mummy,” also directed by Sommers. It’s a movie with a much better reputation than “Van Helsing,” particularly because of the memorable lead performances from Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, and perhaps because it’s constrained by a tighter budget (it earned over $400 million globally off an $80 million budget). But both are examples of the studio Universal’s history of trying to reinvent its classic monster IP.
Universal would try that again with 2017’s “The Mummy” reboot starring Tom Cruise, which was meant to kick start a new MCU-like shared universe that would also include Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll and Johnny Depp as The Invisible Man. It ended up as cursed as it sounds; less than a month after Universal officially announced its “Dark Universe” plans, “The Mummy” disappointed at the box office and was critically panned, killing the studio’s plans. Since then, Universal has focused on standalone movies to varying results: 2020’s “The Invisible Man” was a hit, and “Renfield” not so much. Up next is “Wolf Man,” releasing in January.
But after re-watching “Van Helsing” and the ‘99 “Mummy,” I couldn’t help but wonder if Universal missed an opportunity here; the two movies only take place a dozen years apart! Sure, “Van Helsing” was ultimately a commercial disappointment, but I find it hard to believe audiences wouldn’t have eaten up seeing Jackman and Fraser together on the big screen in their respective roles at the time.
Of course, that’s all what-could-have-been. Today, the Van Helsing property is still alive and well, unbeknownst to me until I started research for this piece. Did you know a “Van Helsing” TV show ran on the Syfy channel (owned by NBCUniversal) for five seasons from 2016 to 2021?? Now, a TV reboot has reportedly landed at CBS.
And in 2020, it was reported that Universal was exploring a new Van Helsing movie, this time produced by Atomic Monster, founded by “Saw” and “Conjuring” director James Wan. There have been few updates since then and Atomic Monster merged with Blumhouse this year, which has produced Universal’s latest batch of monster movies. So it could still very much be in the cards.
The appetite for a new “Van Helsing” movie today remains to be seen, and that could also be said for Universal’s monster properties in general. “Wolf Man” in January will be a good test; can Blumhouse pull off the kind of success it did with “The Invisible Man” ($144 million worldwide off a $7 million budget)? If it’s budgeted similarly to “The Invisible Man,” then it already has a better chance at success than the last time Universal took a shot at the property: 2010’s “The Wolfman” cost $150 million to make and earned $140 million globally.
In the mean time, I urge you to watch or re-watch 2004’s “Van Helsing” and just have fun with it. Let me know what you think.
RELATED: The state of horror
Two months ago, I wrote about the state of the horror genre this year at the box office. A once bullet-proof genre has shown some vulnerability in 2024; in the first half of the year, the highest grossing horror movie globally was January’s “Night Swim” with $54 million. “Longlegs” stands out as one of few true-horror hits of the year.
Since I wrote that piece, there have been a couple memorable movies released that have bucked the negative trend: “Terrifier 3” has earned over $60 million worldwide off of a measly budget, and “Smile 2” opened last week with $23 million domestically, on par with the first movie.
But as I wrote in my September piece, the genre could be facing an over-saturation problem. According to industry analyst David Gross, 28 horror movies are being released this year, “by far the biggest annual count in modern history.” Yet, in mid-September, Gross estimated the genre would generate $1.5 billion worldwide this year, less than the $2 billion it made in 2023, when there were fewer horror movies released.
That said, small-budgeted indie movies like “Longlegs,” “The Substance,” and “Terrifier 3” show that there is still an appetite for the genre. As Gross wrote: “Having more pictures is diluting the results to some degree on a per-film basis, with a lot of smaller films jumping in.”
Beyond the Traverse
🤡 Hollywood Reporter dived into how “Terrifier 3” challenged Hollywood’s rating system (and then topped the box office).
🦖 A sequel to the excellent, Academy Award-winning “Godzilla Minus One” is officially in the works.
⚔️ A “Game of Thrones” movie is probably going to happen before the next book in the series is released.
🦁 Netflix, famously anti-theaters, is considering an Imax release for “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig’s “Chronicles of Narnia” movie.
🧛 Disney took Marvel’s troubled “Blade” movie off the release calendar for next year, replacing it with a new “Predator” film.
🎮 Amazon is starting from scratch on its planned “God of War” TV series, based on the Playstation game franchise.
I wonder whatever happened to that "Transylvania" NBC spinoff to "Van Helsing". I remember NBC ordered it straight-to-series with a twelve episode commitment, and most of the sets were already either being built, or recycled from the movie. After that opening weekend for "Van Helsing", that whole thing immediately vanished.
I would think the horror genre is the best place to test the obvious theory that you just need to monitor spending to fix the industry. Just keep spending down for a couple of years, and you'll yield higher profits. You'll put less of a premium on release dates, give creators more freedom to craft an interesting movie. "Longlegs" should be a teachable moment -- apparently they did ZERO TV advertising for that film.
These execs are just too stuck on the excitement of a $300 million movie that makes a billion dollars worldwide, even if they generate more profit from a couple of "Longlegs" that cost nothing. Purely an ego thing, nothing more.
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