4 Terrible Movies That Want to Be the Next 'Avengers'
Ever since the interconnected films of Marvel Studios started raking in more money than most of the nations of the world, every studio in Hollywood has been frantically looking for suitable candidates to develop their own cinematic universes.
Some of these seem like logical fits, such as the upcoming DC Universe and the impending cornucopia of Star Wars spinoffs. Then there are the following atrocities, which make about as much sense as an interconnected series of films about all the different Pop-Tart flavors.
Good News, Everybody! They're Making More Twilight!
Twilight is a classic horror franchise, in the sense that part of the definition of "classic" is "it made a bunch of money a few years ago but is no longer culturally relevant." However, Hollywood isn't about to let this cash cow about a relationship more frightening than any of the actual monsters go to its grave just because they've already filmed all of the source material, so they've cast some black-magic spell to bind us all to a sprawling new universe of Twilight short films set to debut on the Internet.
Which is honestly further than this franchise should have gotten, talent- and effort-wise.
According to CBC News, "Facebook is teaming up with movie studio Lionsgate and author Stephenie Meyer to revive the Twilight franchise." Without hyperbole, this is probably the worst crime against humanity that Canada has ever reported on. The deal will produce five short films based on five Twilight characters, such as Shirtless Werewolf #3 and Evil Dakota Fanning, to be released on Facebook to the delight of abusive men and repressed women everywhere.
Edward's body language in this picture accurately describes the entire series.
"We think Facebook is a great way for us to introduce the world of Twilight to a whole new audience while re-energizing existing fans," said a Lionsgate executive, somehow managing to keep a straight face while referring to a franchise that is six years old like it is the fucking Star Wars trilogy. So that means, in all likelihood, we can look forward to another handful of Twilight books and movies about angsty night creatures who don't actually need to exist in perpetual night because they sparkle in freaking daylight instead of bursting into unholy flames.
Dracula Untold Was Hastily Reshot to Tease a Shared Monster Franchise
In Hollywood's mind, Dracula is part of the greatest fictional universe of all: the public domain, where iconic characters and stories that the public are already familiar with can be woven together into a web of crossover films without having to worry about paying anyone for the rights or whether or not connecting the stories makes anything approaching sense.
"Hey, let's try this again." -Hollywood, 2014
Universal is working on a Mummy reboot, and they're looking to include Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, and pretty much any other recognizable monster that they don't have to pay for. We assume the Creature From the Black Lagoon will make an appearance. They decided to use the recently released Dracula Untold to get the ball rolling on their monster cinematic universe by teasing audiences with an Avengers-style post-credits sequence.
For those of you who didn't see Dracula Untold (read: everyone), the bulk of the film takes place during the Middle Ages, when Dracula gets juiced up with vampire powers and becomes the evil ghoul we all recognize. However, to set the stage for their upcoming slate of monster movies, Universal hastily added a final scene wherein Dracula is trolling through a modern-day marketplace and begins hitting on a woman named Mina (whom you may recognize as the heroine from Bram Stoker's original novel, or, alternately, as a member of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). As the two characters inevitably leave together, the Master Vampire who gave Dracula his awesome powers suddenly appears and says, "Let the games begin," because immortal, centuries-old vampires apparently speak in hackneyed cliches.
And look like Dobby in a Faces of Meth ad.
Of course, considering that not even Luke Evans' mother went to see Dracula Untold, Universal may be rethinking its monster-movie strategy.
Annabelle Is Kicking Off a Conjuring Universe That Could Involve Chucky
Annabelle, the recent horror flick about a haunted doll that apparently can't just be thrown in the garbage or torn apart by the family dog, is a spinoff of The Conjuring, a sleeper hit about the exploits of two paranormal investigators that everyone forgets are full of more bullshit than a cattle farm. Judging by Annabelle's success, that's a lesson no one is likely to remember anytime soon.
"Oh, we remember. We just don't care." -producers
Annabelle is the first of three planned "micro-budget" spinoffs intended to flesh out The Conjuring's universe (Annabelle was made for a downright conservative $6 million), all leading up to Conjuring sequels further detailing the (definitely embellished and probably false) exploits of ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren. It's not clear what cases of the Warrens will be the focus of the sequels (though we imagine they'll skip the Amityville Horror), or what random background item from the first film will provide the plotlines for the spinoffs. There's plenty of haunted bullshit like the Annabelle doll that the Warrens inexplicably keep locked in a room in their house, so we imagine they'll just pick something at random and pay a creative-writing graduate a pile of beans to script a bunch of boos around it.
"Hey, we already made $200 million on a movie about this fucking thing."
If for some reason that doesn't strike you as ridiculous, try this miniature pair of denim overalls on for size: the creator of the Child's Play franchise wants to see a movie about Chucky and Annabelle either doing battle or teaming up to murder grown adults who for some reason cannot overpower them. While this is unlikely to happen, we would be remiss if we didn't point out that the only reason this is unlikely to happen is because the two movies are owned by different studios, and any crossover attempt would get tangled up in miles of red tape.
Get Ready for a Robin Hood Cinematic Universe
Sony is gearing up to throw millions of dollars into a Robin Hood cinematic universe tentatively titled Hood, because time is a flat circle of stone designed to crush us into oblivion with our past misdeeds. If Sony is successful in its attempt to pay someone entirely too much for this idea, the result will be "a series of movies focusing on the outlaw archer and his band of Merry Men: Little John, Friar Tuck, and Will Scarlett." With the greatest respect to Friar Tuck, we don't need a two-hour CGI festival explaining his gritty origins. Furthermore, Hollywood just gave us a Robin Hood origin story like four years ago starring two Academy Award-winning actors and directed by filmmaking legend Ridley Scott. And nobody gave a shit.
This is the Van Helsing of Robin Hood movies.
On the off chance that you're holding on to a shred of optimism about this project because you're a fan of the irreverent 1973 Disney cartoon adaptation and/or Alan Rickman's genre-defying comedic performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, allow us to set all of your good will on fire with a single quote: "The tone of the story has been described as Mission: Impossible and the recent Fast & Furious movies."
"So like this but with horses, basically."
Yep. We're going to be treated to a relentless series of films about a team of AXEd-up douchebags spouting anachronistic quips while committing absurd capers in the Middle Ages.
That's like Sony taking all the worst parts from Young Guns and The Newton Boys and turning it into a movie, then realizing that Wild Wild West already came out and making a movie about Robin Hood instead.
You can read more from Mark, including his pitch to give God a gritty new origin story, at his website.
For more astoundingly bad ideas, see 6 Upcoming Movies That Are Completely Doomed.
