Remember the Dark Universe? Yes, Universal's stab at an MCU-style shared cinematic reality for its monster movies collapsed after 2017's *The Mummy* didn't perform at the box office. One of the films that had been scheduled – release date and all – to follow it was The Bride Of Frankenstein. Now, in the era of stripped-down, filmmaker-focused monster films such as The Invisible Man, writer David Koepp says that the Bride is still alive.
Just don't go expecting it to be on the same scale as the Dark Universe version, which had Bill Condon on to direct and Angelina Jolie considering the role of the big-haired title character. Instead, according to Koepp, who tells Collider, "it’s not the great big, $150 million extravaganza with giant movie stars. It’s not as scaled down as Invisible Man but much more reasonable, doable thing, with, I think, a really cool idea and it’s all present day."
And it's all because Koepp has, like so many of us, had some time on his hands of late. "That was one thing I did during quarantine – I brought back Bride Of Frankenstein into a place where I kind of always wanted it to be," he says. "Universal was very gracious to let me try again. Because they had geared up and shut down famously in the Dark Universe fiasco. Well, not fiasco, but disappointment. So I have a version now and they have a version that we all really like. I think they’re talking to directors now."
Do you still think it can work? If they find the right director, we think it could. For more from Koepp, head for Collider.