The Invisible Man Was Never Considered A Part Of The Dark Universe, Leigh Whannell Reveals
Following the mass success of Marvel’s interconnected cinematic universe, other studios have attempted to establish their own franchises that would duplicate the model. It’s not been successful, to say the least. Warner Bros has dismantled its initial plans to serialize its movies about DC comic book heroes and villains, for the most part, and Universal’s Dark Universe idea was dead on arrival with 2017’s The Mummy. But, will The Invisible Man revive this larger movie monster world the studio had planned to create?
The short answer is no. Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man is a completely standalone film that doesn’t have cameos from the Creature from the Black Lagoon or Frankenstein (thankfully). There was previously a movie of the same title starring Johnny Depp, but the writer/director has revealed that his specific project was never a part of Universal’s scrapped Dark Universe.
In an upcoming episode of CinemaBlend’s ReelBlend podcast, co-host Kevin McCarthy sat down with Leigh Whannell to talk about The Invisible Man. The filmmaker discussed how the movie came to him. In his words:
It was weird, this film came about in a really random way. It wasn’t like I was plugged into some kind of worldbuilding. I had just finished Upgrade, they called me in for a meeting with some of these Universal and Blumhouse execs… I go to this meeting, and they didn’t really talk about Upgrade. I mean, they said they liked it and they moved on. So, I’m sitting on this couch thinking 'What am I here for? What is this meeting about?' And they started talking about The Invisible Man.
Following the mass success of Marvel’s interconnected cinematic universe, other studios have attempted to establish their own franchises that would duplicate the model. It’s not been successful, to say the least. Warner Bros has dismantled its initial plans to serialize its movies about DC comic book heroes and villains, for the most part, and Universal’s Dark Universe idea was dead on arrival with 2017’s The Mummy. But, will The Invisible Man revive this larger movie monster world the studio had planned to create?
The short answer is no. Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man is a completely standalone film that doesn’t have cameos from the Creature from the Black Lagoon or Frankenstein (thankfully). There was previously a movie of the same title starring Johnny Depp, but the writer/director has revealed that his specific project was never a part of Universal’s scrapped Dark Universe.
In an upcoming episode of CinemaBlend’s ReelBlend podcast, co-host Kevin McCarthy sat down with Leigh Whannell to talk about The Invisible Man. The filmmaker discussed how the movie came to him. In his words:
It was weird, this film came about in a really random way. It wasn’t like I was plugged into some kind of worldbuilding. I had just finished Upgrade, they called me in for a meeting with some of these Universal and Blumhouse execs… I go to this meeting, and they didn’t really talk about Upgrade. I mean, they said they liked it and they moved on. So, I’m sitting on this couch thinking 'What am I here for? What is this meeting about?' And they started talking about The Invisible Man.