After a rather dismal take at the domestic box office – a paltry $79 million – it looked as if The Mummy had doomed the prospects of Universal’s planned Dark Universe franchise before it even begun. But the film did remarkably well overseas, bring in enough to raise the film’s global box office to $390 million. While the studio did demonstrate an early show of support for the franchise by announcing its next installment – Bride Of Frankenstein on February 14, 2019 – it remained to be seen if they were committed to their longer-term plans for the series.
Turns out, the studio is betting on the Dark Universe being around for a while longer. The Hollywood Reporter is stating that the studio is interested in Channing Tatum for a planned Van Helsing film.
If Tatum eventually joins that project, he will be yet another high profile star that the studio has attached to a Dark Universe film. The Mummy was headlined by Tom Cruise, who was joined by Russell Crowe in a role that should appear in more of the franchise installments. Bride Of Frankenstein already has Javier Bardem for Frankenstein with the studio hoping to attach Angelina Jolie to the titular role of the Bride. Johnny Depp has been signed to play the Invisible Man in a future film.
Although he is not quite portrayed as a monster hunter in Bram Stoker’s original Dracula novel, the character of Van Helsing has been turned into one in a couple of different movies from the studio. But where those previous films showed him as a competent and highly capable killer of monsters, co-screenwriter Eric Heisserer has stated in previous interviews that this script’s approach to Van Helsing is to make him more of an average man caught in extraordinary circumstances than a superman.
