Dark Universe: The Internet Celebrates Its Third Birthday

On May 22, 2017, the Dark Universe was officially announced with Tom Cruise‘s The Mummy being the first entry into the franchise. The movie was released later that year, but ended up being a flop, effectively ending the Dark Universe before it ever really began. The lost franchise was intended to revive Universal Studios‘ slate of classic monsters ranging from Dracula to Frankenstein’s monster and was set to feature Javier Bardem, Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, and Russell Crowe in addition to Cruise. While Universal did recently revive The Invisible Man to much success, it was in no way related to the film that was previously meant to star Depp. Originally, there was a lot of hype surrounding the launch of Dark Universe, so it’s no surprise people have taken to Twitter today to honor the third anniversary of the scrapped franchise’s announcement.

“Witness the beginning of a #DarkUniverse,” @darkuniverse tweeted three years ago today. You can glimpse the post that started it all below:

Earlier this year, Universal Chairwoman Donna Langley participated in a roundtable discussion alongside other executives for the Hollywood Reporter where she opened up about the failure to launch the Dark Universe. “We had an attempt at interlocking our monsters and it was a failed attempt,” Langley explained. “What we realized is that these characters are indelible for a reason, but there’s no urgency behind them and certainly the world was not asking for a shared universe of classic monsters. But we have gone back and created an approach that’s filmmaker-first, any budget range.”

Despite the fact that the Dark Universe never came to be, it’s still getting a lot of play on Twitter today. Here are some of the best tweets about the long lost franchise…

Three Long Years

Living in the Aftermath

Anniversary Rituals

“MCU Copycat”

Not What They Had Hoped

Potential

In Our Thoughts

Some Can’t Let It Go

Harsh

Wishful Thinking