We’ve known for a while that Universal wants to bring classic horror character The Mummy groaning and scraping from its tomb and back on to screens. Now it appears that that’s only part one of an embryonic, wide-ranging plan to unite the monster characters under one big idea. And the people involved in building this new, terrifying world?** Star Trek** / Transformers' Alex Kurtzman and **Fast & Furious **veteran Chris Morgan.
Kurtzman’s involvement is hardly surprising, since he’s been attached to produce the Mummy reboot almost since it was announced and has been helping to shepherd it through development. Given his recent amicable split with regular writing / producing partner Roberto Orci, it would seem natural for him to work with someone on this. Morgan, given his history with the studio, was the natural choice, even though the idea of the man who writes the Fast scripts tackling something that requires more subtlety does have our alarm bells ringing.
The hope is that they will have a cohesive, connected structure for films featuring characters such as Dracula, The Wolfman, Van Helsing and more, although we doubt there’s a plan to bring them together in a sort of creature-feature **Avengers **(bet someone’s floated that idea, though).
For now Kurtzman and Morgan will be overseeing things, bringing on other filmmakers to write and direct projects and working with the marketing teams. But it would appear Universal’s monsters are headed back in a big way.
As for The Mummy, the studio wants the new film in cinemas for 2016 and is trying to lock in a director.** Dracula Untold**, meanwhile, which sees Luke Evans as the man who becomes the titular bloodsucker, lands on October 3.