In honor of Dracula Untold, which is supposed to start a shared universe containing all of the famous monsters at Universal Studios, let’s take a look at the state of shared universes in cinema.
After Marvel’s extremely risk plan for combining stand-alone movies into one massive feature film called The Avengers paid off big time, studios began to scramble to join in on the newest cinematic craze; shared universes. The first franchise not from Marvel Studios to test this out was The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which took it’s 2012 Andrew Garfield reboot and tired to stretch it to include hints at future spin-offs and sequels. The film was a calamity quality-wise and disappointing financially, which you’d think studios would take as a sign that not all movies need a shared universe.
Nope.
Earlier in the week, tons of scoops came from Sony regarding their position on shared universes in cinema. Not only do they have a ton of different plans for their Spider-Man universe, ranging from coming up with a deal to loan the web-crawler to Disney to rebooting the franchise again, but they also committed to creating a shared universe centered around the mythology of Robin Hood. You can’t make this stuff up folks, these people are in such a desperate craze to replicate the success of Marvel Studios they’re going to some pretty ludicrous measures.
But admittedly Sony is not the only one looking to create a massive universe out of certain cinematic properties. Universal intends to start a shared universe centering around their monster starting with this weeks Dracula Untold, though the June 2016 release The Mummy will be the first one made with a cinematic universe in mind (Dracula reportedly had scenes shot in re-shoots to incorporate it into a larger universe), while Warner Bros. is using Man of Steel as a launching pad for an entire DC Comics universe. Neither of those sound promising on any level, but it must be said that not all non-Marvel Cinematic Universe attempts at a massive universe feel futile.
With Star Wars: Episode VII in December 2015, Disney intends to start putting out a new Star Wars movie every year, with every three years bringing a new “episode” film and all the other years being home to spin-off features focusing on popular character in the Star Wars universe like Yoda or Boba Fett. Potential ideas for spin-off films don’t sound like guaranteed masterpieces, but Star Wars has always had a massive universe of interconnected characters thanks to books, video games and even popular television shows. This just par for the course for the mega-franchise, with many continuations of the universe taking after the bets Star Wars features by having excellent stories and captivating characters (while others take after Attack of The Clones and are excruciating to experience)
But of course, the main thing that currently separates the MCU from the shared universe abomination that is The Amazing Spider-Man franchise is that they have actually quality movies under their belts. The various directors and writers in charge of the Marvel Studios motion pictures put good stories and characters first in many of their features, using world building as another aspect of the storytelling instead of a substitute for it. Sure, the presence of Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy works as a tease for a massive forthcoming baddie, but it also works within this singular story by making Thanos yet another person that belittles the films primary antagonist Ronan The Accuser. Working on those two levels is difficult (and even the folks at Marvel couldn’t pull it off perfectly in Iron Man 2), but putting that kind of craftsmanship into their stories should be the number one priorities for these films, and not how big they can make their shared universes. If you have a great story in hand, then a sprawling cinematic mythology could work, though even then I have a hard time believing that Robin Hood could become a cinematic universe on par with the one one the likes of Marvel Studios or Star Wars has concocted.