By Universal have announced that two characters from their roster of classic monster movies will be making a comeback with the assistance of Tom Cruise and Star Trek writers Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci. Cruise will take the starring role in a reimagining of Van Helsing, a character most recently portrayed by Hugh Jackman in a messy 2004 attempt at franchise building. The Mummy will also be returning (I hope you read that in a sufficiently ominous voice), although there’s no mention whether it will be in any way related to the Brendan Fraser movies or Dwayne Johnson Scorpion King spin-offs.
I’m always keen on a new monster movie, but recent efforts have consistently disappointed: The Mummy movies were pretty abject after a decent first entry, the aforementioned Van Helsing struggled to bring life to an inspired premise (multi-monster mashup), and 2010’s The Wolfman had a troubled production history and wasted a cast as talented as Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt and Anthony Hopkins. Kurtzman and Orci also wrote Transformers 2, so that’s not exactly reassuring. Fingers crossed though!
[via Coming Soon]