It looks like Johnny Depp will be joining Universal's monster mash — the Black Mass actor and Tim Burton muse has signed on for the studio's remake of the 1933 black-and-white seminal horror classic The Invisible Man.
Taking a cue from Marvel (and Sony), Universal plans to form its own expanded universe — but instead of superheroes, Universal's EU will connect monsters and monster-hunters like Dracula, Van Helsing, the Bride of Frankenstein and the Wolfman. All of the rights to these characters belong to Universal to begin with, thanks to the studio's Golden Age producer Carl Laemmle, Jr., who made his studio a literal House of Horror (movies).
To create Universal's new connected monster milieu, the studio brought on producers Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan to oversee the vast project. Following Marvel/Sony's example, the studio and its producers plan to release a new monster flick every year.
"We're creating a mythology, so we're looking at this canon and thinking, 'What are the rules?' " Kurtzman said in an interview with Variety back in November 2015. "What can we break and what are the ones that are untouchable?"
Based on the 1897 sci-fi novella by HG Wells, The Invisible Man tells the story of a scientist named Griffin, who finds a way to make himself invisible, as the title suggests. What he doesn't count on is the possible inability to reverse his new condition — a condition that drives him to madness and homicide. The movie was adapted for the screen in 1933 by none other than James Whale, who was also the genius behind Frankenstein (1931) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1933), both of which made actor Boris Karloff a household name.
The Invisible Man also served as the inspiration for later film classics, like The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Time Machine, as well as loosely-tied adaptations like the Kevin Bacon vehicle Hollow Man. Excluding the dozens of TV versions of The Invisible Man produced throughout the years, Whale's version remains the only direct retelling of the story — until now.
The news of Depp's official involvement with Universal's monster movie renaissance comes only months after the studio announced that Tom Cruise officially signed on for a reboot of 1932's The Mummy, where he will play opposite to Star Trek actress Sofia Boutella, who will take over the titular role originated by — who else? — Karloff.
In the vein of Whale's movies, Morgan and Kurtzman also want to imbue Univeral's remakes and reboots with timeless themes in a contemporary context — the gender-flip casting in The Mummy is a prime example.
"This is not a heightened world," Morgan also told Variety, explaining the duo's aim to add a dose of sobering realism with the legacy of Universal's horror movies, which regularly mixed camp and comedy with the genre.
"We're exploring issues of family identity and questions of, 'Where do I belong in the world?'" he added.
Source: The Wrap
