Why So Blu?

Then they need to cast the biggest star in Hollywood to play Dracula.

GoldenJCJ

^Jennifer Lawrence?

Why So Blu?

Works for me.

fumanstan

Weird comparison since Transformers makes a billion dollars worldwide. $200 million worldwide isn't very impressive at all for something they want to be a big franchise.

Why So Blu?

It was a fast comparison. On a 70 million budget and then after they touted it as being the first of the new universe.

E Unit

Not once did I hear that was supposed to be the beginning of a new universe. $70 mil? How much of that was budget? I never looked at any of that.

Why So Blu?

What do you mean? The film cost 70 million to make and it made 217 million worldwide.

fumanstan

And now they're obviously ignoring it for a reason at the moment - like I said, doesn't matter if it made a profit when that overall number still isn't particularly big. It would be different it made considerably more, or at least had great reviews, but I imagine Universal has much, much higher goals for their monster franchise then what Dracula pulled in.

Brack

Dracula Untold did okay, but it didn't do great business internationally. If it had made something close to Warcraft money overseas, I could see Universal bothering to tie it in, but it didn't.

Solid Snake

Yeah. I totally remember Universal touting Dracula Untold as the start of its Monster Universe.

sauce07

Universal seems to be going for the big movie stars to fill out this universe. The MCU isn't based off movie stars, leaves a bunch of the top talent in hollywood off to the side wanting something. I wouldn't be surprised to see DiCaprio play Dracula now that he has his shiny statue, Brad Pitt as Van Helsing, and Angelina Jolie as Bride of Frankenstein.

Why So Blu?

What do you mean it didn't do great internationally? That's where it did the best. it made more than twice its budget overseas.

160,843,925 overseas.

Warcraft cost 3-4 times more than DU did, though. Unless the studios are just being greedy again and downplaying the returns.

DU was not a bomb by any means.

B.A.

Annabelle Wallis is precious to me.

Why So Blu?

I remember them saying that they wanted Angelina as Bride of, but then she divorced Brad and they stopped talking about it. The last thing I heard about the universe was javier Bardem as Frankenstein's monster or something.

Josh-da-man

From the cheap seats, it seems like Universal is more concerned with luring a-list talent into their monster universe than actually developing a cohesive universe and story arc.

It also doesn't bode well in the long run if they're trying to build evetything around a bunch of movie stars.

And I'm also skeptical that these things are going to work as big dumb action movies set in the current era. The Universal Monsters are gothic horror properties, and when Hollywood tries to update them into the modern era, you get crap like Dracula 2000.

Why So Blu?

Just Googled her - damn, she's fine as fuck.

Solid Snake

I'm still waiting for del Toro's Frankenstein. Ugh. Only he could do that book justice. So many things he wants to do and is doing too. I still want his Frankenstein and At the Mountains of Madness. And we were so close to the latter.

sauce07

If Tom Cruise couldn't get Del Toro's vision for At the Mountains of Madness greenlit, I don't know who can.

Brack

Almost all big budget action films make most of their money overseas, but domestic still matters. I think the first Hunger Games was the last one that didn't make most of its money overseas. $160m isn't much for an overseas take anymore, and certainly not enough to jumpstart a franchise/cinematic universe.

According to box office mojo, Warcraft had a $160m budget, so only a little over twice the budget of DU. Had Warcraft done a little better domestically, a sequel would have been greenlit months ago, but that's still up in the air because domestic still matters. If it didn't, the rest of the His Dark Materials trilogy would have been made instead of just The Golden Compass. The studios could also fear turning domestic dollars irrelevant when there's a lot of money to be made despite domestic shortcomings, or perhaps it's an ego thing going on.

E Unit

Right, 70 mil to make, but how much on marketing? If it was conservative and they barely marketed it, I'd say they spent $30-40 mil, bringing the cost up to over $100 mil just to get it out there. And that's probably why the regular moviegoer didn't know this was supposed to be a first in a franchise. Like I said, I had no idea they were trying to position it as such.

This is what I was getting at.

fumanstan

Why So Blu?

$30-$40 million in marketing? Nope. Not even close. Overinflated marketing costs are just a smokescreen.

E Unit

Oh....right.

Why So Blu?

It's the truth - but I understand what you're saying. Someone said it could be ego and someone mentioned that maybe the studios are trying to do Monsters and high profile star cinematic universes, and such. I don't know - but I personally think that Dracula Untold should be the first, because if you make yet another Dracula movie - folks will reject it, because they're burnt out. Hell, I love Dracula, but I'm also burnt out.

E Unit

I was burnt out in 1992 with Coppola's. But this universe is now in the hands of Kurtzman, at least for now. I'm fairly certain they have a plan for the universe already setup, which will include the umpteenth version of Dracula.