'The Huntsman' Gains 2016 Release Date while 'The Mummy' gets Bumped

A couple release dates to mark in your calendars. Universal has set an April 22nd 2016 date for Snow White and the Huntsman prequel, The Huntsman, which will take place without Kristen Stewart. Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron will return, however, with the Frank Darabont-directed film centering on their characters' relationship before the arrival of Snow White.

That date had been occupied by Universal's planned reboot of The Mummy, which just recently tapped Alex Kurtzman as director. It has now been slid back a couple of months to June 24th, when it will be the first of the studio's attempted "cohesive universe" starring classic movie monsters.

And the James Wan-produced horror Demonic has been slated by Dimension Films for December 12th 2014. Starring Maria Bello and Frank Grillo, the story "centers on the aftermath of a horrific massacre where five college students were brutally murdered inside an abandoned home. Detective Mark Lewis and psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Klein question one of the few survivors who explains they were amateur ghost-hunters, seeking out paranormal phenomenon at the abandoned house, which was believed to be haunted. But what started out as a harmless activity turned into something truly terrifying." Will Cannon is set to direct.

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Alex Kurtzman Takes Over 'The Mummy' Reboot

Before their supposedly amicable creative split, uber-duo Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman had a number of blockbuster projects cooking. One of those was Universal's planned reboot of The Mummy, part of the studio's plan to revive their entire library of classic movie monsters. With Orci moving on to helm Star Trek 3, and Kurtzman hip-deep in Sony's Spider-Man franchise, it looks like their creative partnership is 100% kaput. Variety reports Kurtzman will direct The Mummy, and there's no mention of Orci's involvement at all.

Joining Kurtzman will be Fast & Furious writing/producing mainstay, Chris Morgan, and as we learned recently it will be their job to create a cohesive universe for all of Universal's cinematic monsters.  It sounds like there will be some tonal similarities to The Mummy movies led by Brendan Fraser, in that it will be an action-adventure with some horror elements. However this one will be set in the modern day rather than the 1920s.

Kurtzman last directed the little-seen and somewhat underrated drama, People Like Us, so this will obviously be quite a step up. The Mummy rises from the tomb on April 22nd 2016.

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Shared Universe for Classic Movie Monsters On the Way

Recently, Universal set out on a course of rebooting their line of classic movie monsters such as Frankenstein's monster, Dracula, and the Mummy. Their first act was hiring ex-creative partners Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to spearhead this effort, and the plan they hinted at was to create a cinematic universe similar to what Disney has done with The Avengers. And now that plan is going into effect courtesy of the folks who brought you Transformers and The Fast and the Furious.

Alex Kurtzman, a writer on Star Trek and two of the Transformers movies will be teaming up with Fast & Furious franchise writer/producer Chris Morgan to craft an "interconnected slate" of monster flicks beginning with 2016's The Mummy reboot. Len Wiseman had been attached to direct that film but he dropped out and now it seems to be in a state of flux. Also considered to be part of the group of classic creatures up for a redo are The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon, basically every monster that made up Universal's popular run of horror films in the 1920s through the 1950s.

If recent history is any guide Universal have a tough road ahead of them. It wasn't that long ago they attempted a remake of The Wolfman led by Benicio Del Toro and audiences stayed clear. The Mummy franchise, once lucrative in the days of Brendan Fraser (how often you hear something like that??) are now just a bunch of lame straight-to-DVD spinoffs. It's also unclear if the Van Helsing remake, which once had Tom Cruise attached, is a part of this whole deal.

A better gauge for how this could turn out will be the performance of Universal's Dracula Untold, starring Luke Evans and opening October 17th. [Deadline]

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Andres Muschietti Departs 'The Mummy' Reboot

So what's going on with people leaving unnecessary remakes lately? Yesterday came word that Gerard Butler had surfed out of the Point Break remake, and now today Universal's relaunch of The Mummy has lost director Andres Muschietti.

Muschietti, who directed the horror Mama starring Jessica Chastain, came aboard last year when Len Wiseman originally left the project. So what's the deal? Creative differences, apparently. as Universal wants it to be more of a family-friendly film while Muschietti aimed for something darker. When he signed on  it came at the expense of another film, Bird Box, and it's possible Muschietti will go back to directing that.

Producers Alex Kurtzman, Bob Orci, and writer Jon Spaihts (Prometheus) will presumably move ahead on The Mummy after a new director is found.  Personally, what little interest I had in this just took a nose dive. [TheWrap]

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'Warcraft' Escapes to 2016; 'Seventh Son' Delayed A Year; 'The Mummy' Reboot Dated

Now that Universal and Legendary Pictures are a tag team combo (the latter was formerly with Warner Bros.), they have a slew of major projects that are looking for release dates. Some are getting bumped around, and at least one is fleeing for its life from the Star Wars juggernaut.

First up, and the only one I really care about, is Duncan Jones' Warcraft film, which has moved from December 18th 2015 to March 11th 2016. Why? Because opening opposite Star Wars: Episode VII is a fool's errand. Right now we know that Paula Patton and Travis Fimmell are set for two of the leads, with Colin Farrell, Paul Dano, and others possibly joining.

It's rarely a good thing when a film that is only a few weeks from release is suddenly delayed by more than a year, but that's the case with Seventh Son. The YA adaptation directed by Sergei Bodrov and starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore has been moved from January 2014 to February 6th 2015. Potential disaster in the making? The trailer released some time ago didn't exactly make a lot of waves, so maybe the year will be spent retooling.

Michael Mann's long-developing untitled cyber crime thriller with Chris Hemsworth has been set for January 16th 2015. The film co-stars Viola Davis and "follows a furloughed convict and his American and Chinese partners as they hunt a high-level cybercrime network from Chicago to Los Angeles to Hong Kong to Jakarta." The January date is troubling, to say the least, because it means perhaps there isn't a lot of confidence in it being any good.

And finally, that reboot of The Mummy that probably could've stayed buried has been dated for April 22nd 2016. Produced by Star Trek's Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the film will be directed by Andres Muschietti (Mama) with a script by Jon Spaihts, writer of Prometheus.

Location:Grenadier Ave N,Oakdale,United States

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'Mama' Director Andres Muschietti to Revive 'The Mummy'

If your hope was that Universal's reboot of The Mummy had gone to the sarcophagus in the sky after Len Wiseman bailed on it, then chances are you're going to pretty upset. Rather than letting it die, the studio has found a way to bring it back from an early grave, hiring Andres Muschietti to direct it.

Muschietti is coming off the $140M-grossing horror, Mama, which starred Jessica Chastain and did so well that franchise talk began almost immediately. He'll be taking on a much bigger project now, featuring a script by Prometheus writer Jon Spaihts that will bring the Mummy into a contemporary setting. Considering the last franchise managed to reel in over $1B with D-lister Brendan Fraser in the lead, Universal has good cause to put a lot of muscle behind this fresher take.

No casting has been revealed yet but expect that to change soon now that a director is in place. [THR]

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Billy Ray to pen competing script for 'The Mummy' reboot

There's always the chance that Universal's attempt to reboot The Mummy franchise could be a success, but right now it's sounding like a disaster. You might recall last year they hired Jon Spaihts, who at the time had a ton of fanfare after Prometheus, to pen the relaunch for producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. Not a bad decision, really. Then they hired Len Wiseman, who had just bombed on the Total Recall remake, to direct. He's not that different from Stephen Sommers, so it made some sense. Their next decision, though, is something of a headscratcher.

Vulture reports that Billy Ray, in my opinion one of the best screenwriters in Hollywood, has been hired to pen a competing script, which is in hopes of getting production going this year. They really want to have the next film ready by 2014, and somebody thinks having more scripts to deal with is a good way to accomplishing that.  More disturbing is what Vulture's source says about Universal's plan, which is to basically take parts of both scripts and piece them together like some horrible Frankenstein's monster....

"My suspicion is that one of them will be a ‘structure-and-body’ man, and one’s going to be a ‘character-and-dialogue’ man — and that they’ll then just gang-bang them together into one script, crediting both writers, because credit arbitration is usually a nightmare."

Ugh. Ray most recently wrote The Hunger Games, and has done some excellent work in the past. If you haven't seen the FBI thriller, Breach, you should make it a top priority. He also wrote and directed Shattered Glass, and has penned Paul Greengrass' upcoming Somali pirates film, Captain Phillips. So I have no doubt that Ray's draft will be strong, even if Universal finds a way to screw it up.

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Len Wiseman to direct 'The Mummy' reboot

Despite this summer's dull and tedious Total Recall remake mostly crapping the bed here in the States, the film actually did pretty well overseas. The $170M worldwide total is indicative of the trend when it comes to Len Wiseman-directed flicks. They tend to do average business here, while scoring big on the foreign market where  they love to watch mediocre American action movies. Wiseman's Underworld franchise fits into that category as well. But the fact remains he does make money, and Universal must be happy with him, because they've picked him to lead their reboot of The Mummy.

It was earlier this year we learned of the studio's plan to reboot the classic movie monster, with Transformers duo Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci producing. Jon Spaihts(Prometheus) would be writing the script, and the trio seemed to indicate Universal's plan to really move the ball forward with a fresh approach. The hiring of Wiseman sorta contradicts that, as he's not exactly a director I see as being especially creative.

There is some recent history between Orci, Kurtzman, and Wiseman as they're teaming up on a Sleepy Hollow pilot, so I'm sure that figured into the decision. Still, this blunts my excitement a thousand fold. Hopefully they'll make a smarter choice with their Van Helsing relaunch which has Tom Cruise attached. [Deadline]

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