Following the success of The Invisible Man back in February, Universal Pictures is reopening its monster-movie vault. The studio has greenlit another project starring one of its classic characters; this time, it's Dracula's traditional enemy Abraham Van Helsing.
Reportedly, someone at Universal has always wanted to take another shot at the Van Helsing character, who's become the archetypal vampire hunter over the last century or so of horror fiction. Its previous attempt, 2004's Van Helsing with Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale, survived some truly bad reviews to earn just over $300 million at the box office, which theoretically meant it made a profit. However, because Hollywood accountants use their own dark arithmetic, that was not enough of a success to kick off a franchise like Universal wanted at the time.
The new Van Helsing has Julius Avery (Overlord) attached as director/co-writer, with James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring) as producer. Eric Pearson (Black Widow) is planned to write the original script.
Right about now, cynical film fans are probably thinking of the old, abandoned "Dark Universe" project, a planned cinematic universe built around Universal's famous monsters. It famously blew up on the runway in 2017 when Tom Cruise's The Mummy failed to meet box-office expectations, and was a running joke in the industry for much of the next year.
Thankfully, that's not a thing anymore. Sources like Variety have reported that the current plan for Universal's horror revivals isn't to try to get an interconnected franchise going. Instead, it plans to use its old monsters to create a series of stand-alone, filmmaker-driven projects, in what Peter Cramer at Universal called "a more individualized approach for their return to screen, shepherded by creators who have stories they are passionate to tell with them."
That, in turn, suggests that whatever Avery does with Van Helsing will be whatever Avery wants to do. Going by his best-known work to date, 2018's WWII zombie film Overlord, and the involvement of Wan, it's probably safe to expect a gruesome R-rated thriller made on a modest budget. Van Helsing is also early enough in its development cycle that it is not necessarily safe from Jason Blum, who seems to just kind of show up in the room these days whenever someone tries to make a horror movie.
Abraham Van Helsing was introduced in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, and with the rest of the book, officially became public domain in 1962. That's led to many adaptations of the character besides Universal's over the years, including his vampire-hunter-turned-vampire descendant Rachel in Marvel Comics, his steampunk vampire hunter daughter Liesel in Zenescope Comics, and his descendant Vanessa (Kelly Overton), who's heading into her fifth and final season as the lead character of the Syfy Channel's vampire-apocalypse series Van Helsing. Abraham may not be as popular or well-known as Dracula, but at least his name has proven to be synonymous with monster hunting in the Western world.
Universal's next production is Paul Greengrass' Civil War-era road picture News of the World, co-starring Tom Hanks and Helena Zengel, which is scheduled for release on Christmas Day.
Source: Deadline