Universal may be keeping mum about their plans for their interconnected monster movie franchise, but some of the writers working on some of the various films in the planned series are certainly getting chatty about it. Earlier we heard from Eric Heisserer who spoke a bit about his work on the screenplay for Van Helsing. And now Collider has a few words from David Koepp, who has completed work on a draft for the studio’s planned Bride Of Frankenstein film.
Koepp describes his take on the project as much more modern, especially in this current time when a number of female-led franchises such as Star Wars and The Hunger Games are starting to take over summer blockbuster territory.
It’s one of my favorite scripts I’ve written in years because if you reimagine the Frankenstein story, it gets into so many issues of men trying to feel dominant over women. To create someone who then says, “You don’t own me,” it becomes a tale of liberation. It was great. It was really fun, and I hope it gets going soon because I think it’d make for a great movie.
How fun it is and how liberating it is. Narratively and stylistically to write a character who’s dead. She’s not a zombie. She’s a super-intelligent creature, but she’s dead, and that changes a person’s perspective.
All the films in Universal’s franchise, starting with next summer’s The Mummy, are putting their own modern spin on their individual stories. But Koepp notes that each film will still feel like an independent piece as well as part of a greater whole, thanks in part to unique character of each of the films’ headlining villains.
I was in touch with the other people who were making Mummy and in touch with Universal and getting a sense of what they’re doing, because they can’t be wholly different movies, but each one is characterized by the personality of its creature. So the stories are dictated by the creature. In ours, the Bride is essentially a sympathetic figure. This tragic, hunted figure. And obviously the Mummy is a very bad entity that must be stopped. That’s not us. The troublemakers are the ones who would try to control her… [W]e’re all from the same tree, but different kinds of fruit.
But as to where the film will fall in relation to the other films of the series, Koepp is not so sure and suggests that the shape of the franchise is still being determined to a certain extent.
I think they’re figuring out their whole universe and when it will go. They got a few they’ve got to work on.
The Mummy opens June 9, 2017.
