Rebel wrote:
A couple years ago I read that Universal was planning to recreate their monster movie classics in the form of 3D CG animation. IIRC, they said that the first one was going to come out in 2005 (Frankenstein maybe?). However I have not heard anything about it since that one article. Does anyone know the status of these Universal animation projects?
Stephen Sommers was to do a CGI Frankenstein (to be animated by ILM). It was going to be a combination of the book Frankenstein and the first two Universal Frankenstein films - Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. The film was also to be black and white only (and I think at one point they were talking of digitally degrading the image too to give it more of an old film look). I understand it was to be faithful to the original book and the Universal films.
Of course some of Sommers' decisions gave Universal cold feet - so there were various creative differences which ultimately resulted in the project being closed down. Some of ILM's test footage is supposed to exist and be available on the web somewhere, but I cannot find it. People report it was looks stunning.
I suppose this is how the Van Helsing project originated... it's probably a spin-off from the Frankenstein animation. Van Helsing will be as faithful to the original stories and Universal films as Sommers' Mummy films are to the Universal Mummy. I'm sure the movie will be a lot of fun... the Vampire's Ball in the trailer looks absolutely fantastic. But it's not a film which will respect Universal's great horror legacy.
As for the Legacy collections, all those films and only one "House of Dracula" is a film that has not been released on DVD before? And I have to buy the other Dracula films just to get this? Also, my Classic Monster DVDs have wonderful supplements which are almost certain to be missing from these packages. Seems like Universal can't do anything right.
I'm also surprised there's not a Mummy Legacy collection - Universal have 5 films there ideal for a package, the first of which (Karloff's The Mummy) is probably the best of Universal's horror films.
http://www.btinternet.com/~james.reader/themummy/
http://www.btinternet.com/~james.reader/dracula/
http://www.btinternet.com/~james.reader/frankenstein/
Note: My site is underconstruction (and has been for about 2 years now) so most of the links on these pages don't work.
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Most of my Blu-ray collection some of my UK discs aren't on their database