By Universal studios desperately wants to launch a movie universe, and they’re plan is to do it through their universal monster properties. The first film in this franchise is this weekend’s The Mummy. But it appears there may not be any big bang to get this universe going. Predictions for the films opening are around $35-$40 million, and that puts it below Wonder Woman‘s predicted box office for the weekend.
Anecdotally, I bought a ticket for the movie yesterday for the 7 p.m. screening tomorrow, and not a single seat in the theater had been reserved. Now, this doesn’t mean that no tickets had been sold yet, but it certainly doesn’t look good.
Universal might be banking on a strong international box office as Tom Cruise is a huge draw internationally, but that doesn’t bode well for their high profile plans (including Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, and Angelina Jolie) to turn this into a series of blockbuster movies like Marvel. If no one shows up to this first film will they continue to roll forward with their plans? Remember they already scrapped their plans once when Dracula Untold didn’t work out. It seems kind of brash to stop them now after they’ve named all the big stars, though. Maybe they should have waited to see if people were actually interested in a monster universe before making one.
Then again, predictions are often wrong. Wonder Woman, the very film predicted to beat out The Mummy this weekend, wasn’t supposed to break $70 million. It’s now pushing toward $150 million.
