The Projector #31: Monsters, Inc. (Patreon)

by Keith Phipps

Who can forget when they first entered the Dark Universe? Announced in 2017, it was to be Universal’s attempt at a shared universe, a product of a moment when every studio felt the need to have its own equivalent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And it was going to be great! Tom Cruise was the Mummy (sort of). Johnny Depp was going to be the Invisible Man. Javier Bardem was destined to be Frankenstein’s Monster. And presiding over it all: Russell Crowe’s Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. But plans have a way of falling apart sometimes and the Dark Universe produced precisely one film, 2017’s The Mummy. (I think we did an episode on it, but it’s hard to remember.)

From its ashes, however, has arisen a new approach to classic monsters as evidenced by Universal’s The Invisible Man, in theaters this week and soon to be the subject of an upcoming episode. From all appearances, the studio’s new approach seems to be to let directors bring their own visions to the classic characters, which sounds refreshingly radical when contrasted with the assembly line churn needed to keep a shared universe going.

So what other sort of takes on classic movie mounters would we like to see? I polled my co-hosts.

Genevieve Koski: I would personally love to see an adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera outside the context of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s 1986 musical, with an eye more toward updating the 1925 Lon Chaney silent film. And given that The Invisible Man is our prompt here, I’m now itching for an update that centers Christine in the story, and draws out the themes of female ambition and male control, while backgrounding the Phantom’s revenge/redemption narrative, because yawn. Such a twist would naturally invite a female perspective behind the script and camera, and while Greta Gerwig is currently a front-of-mind candidate for such a thing, I can’t help but wonder what Sofia Coppola would do with such a story, given her fixation on women being observed and confined in luxurious but limiting worlds.

Scott Tobias: Might it be time for Abbott and Costello to meet Frankenstein again? The comedy duo may be long dead, but why should that be a sticking point? Key & Peele could meet Frankenstein, as could Fey & Poehler, or Kroll & Mulaney, or, my favorite, Ferrell & Reilly. The original Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a fun little capper to the Universal monster movies, and it’s not much of a stretch to believe that a bumbling duo encountering a castle full of classic monsters can be comic gold again. It could be a little scary, too. (My dad was so freaked out by it as a little boy that he chewed through a cardboard belt.) I like Robert Eggers to direct. The Lighthouse has a sneaky-sharp sense of humor, and his obsession with detail could bring the period backdrop to life.

Tasha Robinson: Wolf Men, Invisible Men, Franken-men, Dracula… all those classic monsters have been remade, revised, and re-vamped (pun intended) a zillion times, and I can't think of one of them I'm eager to see stagger back into the light. Let's go for something that hasn't already been done to death, and for good reason. I'm talking about a revival of 1977's extreme horror oddity Death Bed: The Bed That Eats, about a killer bed. Which eats people. Horror revivals are all about finding some modern resonance in a campy old idea, and what's campier than a haunted bed? Let's have Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse) harness his ultra-detail-oriented, grimly austere aesthetic toward telling a story about a world where rest becomes impossible, because there's a creature of some kind moving from bed to bed, devouring anyone who dares to let down their guard. (Unlike in the original Death Bed, it'd have to be some sort of mobile phenomenon, because you just can't trust people to stumble into a remote house and try to have sex in the haunted bed anymore, but that's what remakes are for: re-imagining a concept.) It just can't be that hard to make this one spookier than the original.

As for me, my first thought goes to the Gill Man from The Creature from the Black Lagoon, because I love that guy, but we’ve already gotten The Shape of Water, so it might be best to let him rest for awhile (even if he’d be the perfect sympathetic focus for an environmental parable that ultimately came down on the side of letting greedy humans die and allowing Gill Men and Gill Women to enjoy nature in all their gilly glory). I don’t know. Has anyone done a movie about a werewolf who’s really good at basketball? That’s a good idea, right?

Also a good idea: Listening to our new episode about Thelma & Louise (with special guest Angelica Jade Bastién) and reading some of these pieces:

• Did Space Jam’s screenwriter smuggle pro-union sentiments into the movie? Mel’s Steven Perlberg investigates.

• What subtleties are Western viewers of Parasite missing? You can explore via this Su Cho article for Medium or this Reddit post.

• For Polygon, Petrana Radulovic asks why so few vintage cartoons aimed at girls have gotten the big-screen treatment like their boy equivalents.

• Speaking of Angelica Jade Bastién, you should read this Birds of Prey-inspired essay on unruly women (it’s more relevant for next week’s episode but may as well read it now) and her interview with Star Trek: Picard guest star (and Star Trek: Voyager veteran) Jeri Ryan.