Since his time on The Office, Paul Feig has worked on a wide variety of projects. From the 2016 version of Ghostbusters to Last Christmas, Feig has shown that he is willing to diverge from his comedy roots. His newest venture Dark Army is no exception.
Last fall, we learned that Feig had pitched Universal Pictures an original monster movie. The project, Dark Army, would combine new characters, along with some of their most iconic characters across the franchise’s almost 100-year history. At that time Feig had said that he hoped to make the Dark Army script his next film.
Recently, Adam Chitwood of Collider got in contact with Feig. The director stated that he’s now in the rewriting phase [of the film], but still hopes it’ll be either his next film or the film after that.
“I wrote a draft and got thoughts from the studio, and now I’m in the middle of a rewrite on that right now, and so hopefully that’ll be my next movie. If it’s not, it’ll be the one after whatever I do next. But yeah, I’m very excited about it, too. It’s just, you want to get it right.”
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Instead of making just another horror movie Fieg wants to bring back the tone and feel of the original Universal Monster movies in Dark Army, stating the following:
“I really want this to bring the same feeling that those old monster movies that I loved growing up watching [did]. I’m not as interested in doing a horror movie as I am in doing a true monster film. So, hopefully that will see the light of day. You never know in Hollywood these days, but I love it. I’m very excited about it. I’m excited about the characters that I’ve created and about some of the ones that I’ve been able bring over from the old movies.”
The Monster in Dark Army’s Closet
Universal had originally wanted to make a cinematic universe of monster movies of their own. In the same vein of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, starting with The Mummy starring Tom Cruise. Those plans were scrapped when The Mummy was panned, by both fans and critics, with Aly Caviness of Midwest Film Journal calling it “Absolute garbage from beginning to end.” The film also underperformed at the box office with Deadline estimating that the film lost the studio around $95 million.
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Since the failure of The Mummy Universal has pumped the brakes on the cinematic universe approach and has started giving the greenlight to movies that are trying to give a unique take on some of the classic films. The first of these being The Invisible Man which opens later this month. When Chitwood asked Feig about Universal’s new approach Feig stated the following:
“It’s really smart, because I mean, I can’t wait for Invisible Man, but that looks like a straight-up great horror movie, you know? But then the fact that I just read that they’re going to do this like monster musical, and that’s great, too. I mean, the monster world is just so great. It’s nice to see it just kind of get interpreted a million different ways. So I’m excited about mine and about whatever else they’re going to do.”
Feig got his start working projects such as The Office and Arrested Development. Since then he directed the critically acclaimed Bridesmaids, as well as his most recent release Last Christmas, which received modest box office success.
Dark Army has yet to receive the green light from Universal. However, there’s reason for renewed optimism with the franchise’s new direction and Feig’s enthusiasm with the project, it seems that this is something that both parties are actively interested in. For more information regarding Dark Army make sure to stay up to date with us here at The Illuminerdi!
