It’s become pretty clear in recent months that Universal is now rethinking their approach to rebooting their classic monsters. And you can’t blame them for going back to the drawing board after the whole Dark Universe debacle. After all, production troubles plagued The Mummy, which despite holding a lot of potential, turned out to be a dud and pretty much killed the studio’s attempt at building a cinematic universe right from the start.
But like DC and Warner Bros., Universal is now heading in a more standalone direction, with The Invisible Man set to be the first one of their monster movies to take this approach. If you’ll recall, the original version had Johnny Depp attached to star, but when Blumhouse took over producing duties, they wiped the slate clean and now we’ve got Elisabeth Moss and Oliver Jackson-Cohen in the lead roles. And with its February 28th release date quickly approaching, Universal has served up a spooky new TV spot, debuting it just ahead of the Super Bowl tonight.
Frankly, it looks pretty promising, too, but given what a disaster The Mummy was – and let’s not forget Dracula Untold before it – we’re still a bit skeptical of yet another attempt to launch this monster-filled franchise. Even if it does appear that they’re headed in the right direction now.
At the very least, it looks as if Universal is content to put more faith in the distinctive visions of their directors moving forward and with Leigh Whannell sitting behind the camera here, the project is certainly in safe hands. I mean, did you see 2018’s Upgrade?
Of course, we’ll need to wait until later this month until we can pass a final judgement, but as of right now, The Invisible Man has certainly captured our attention and we’ll be eagerly awaiting its debut in just a few weeks’ time.