Worst Film to Kick Off a Cinematic Universe

[Deck Rickard]

Cinematic universes are clearly all the rage these days but aside from the MCU, but are they worth the risk? The DCEU's struggles have been well documented, but they seem to have (maybe?) turned the corner. Then you have the MonsterVerse, which has had two fairly well-received films so far and has two of the most hotly anticipated films coming out in the next few years. Then of course there is Star Wars, though I'm not really sure which film you would called their expanded universe kick-off film, since they didn't really start with that idea until Disney took over. I guess for the sake of simplicity, we'll say The Force Awakens is the first film of their expanded universe. I guess FoX-Men is its own EU as well, given that the Deadpool and Wolverine franchises launched from it and it's separate from the MCU. And then we have Transformers (it counts, since it spawned a spin-off franchise), and dead-on-arrival Dark Universe. And oh yeah, that Eggsy Goes to Sherwood movie was originally intended to be the first part of an Expanded Robin Hood Universe™, but that ain't happening.

Anyway, I think a lot of this is predicated on how well the first movie was received. Iron Man knocked it out of the park, buying the MCU a lot of good will right off the bat (even though The Incredible Hulk, released just months later, was mediocre at best). If you stumble out of the gate, that can put all of your ambitious, expanded universe plans in jeopardy. So which attempt at starting of an EU was the worst one? I'll even include Iron Man here to be fair.

 

[flickchick85]

A tough call between Robin Hood and the Mummy, but I’m gonna give it to the Mummy because Robin Hood being terrible wasn’t so surprising, but Tom Cruise usually has better judgement (+ what were you doing Russell Crowe?!?).

 

[Mandon Knight]

I'll say it now before people starting posting and saying it, Tom Cruise's 'The Mummy' did not start the Dark Monsters Universe, well it did, technically , but the intention was to go from Dracula Untold and they bottled it so went from The Mummy and that turned out even worse. So that or Robin Hood.

Edit - See I told you

 

[The Shape]

Has to be the new Robin Hood, but I haven't seen that and never will.

 

[flickchick85]

I'll say it now before people starting posting and saying it, Tom Cruise's 'The Mummy' did not start the Dark Monsters Universe, well it did, technically , but the intention was to go from Dracula Untold and they bottled it so went from The Mummy and that turned out even worse. So that or Robin Hood.

Edit - See I told you

But see, the Mummy was the first one with that “Dark Universe” intro, so... it counts!

 

[Deck Rickard]

I'll say it now before people starting posting and saying it, Tom Cruise's 'The Mummy' did not start the Dark Monsters Universe, well it did, technically , but the intention was to go from Dracula Untold and they bottled it so went from The Mummy and that turned out even worse. So that or Robin Hood.

Edit - See I told you

Yeah, I thought about including Dracula Untold as an option, since that cinematic universe technically had TWO attempts to launch and both failed, lol. But I don't think they used the "Dark Universe" logo until The Mummy and they basically wrote DU out of the continuity after it bombed.

 

[Mandon Knight]

If they'd gone from Dracula Untold which actually set the universe up a whole lot better they'd never had the same problem, it was a really good film I thought, but I'm guessing they wanted this 'flash' big name launch b*ll*cks.

 

[Deck Rickard]

If they'd gone from Dracula Untold which actually set the universe up a whole lot better they'd never had the same problem, it was a really good film I thought, but I'm guessing they wanted this 'flash' big name launch b*ll*cks.

People have to actually see your movie if you want it to kick off a universe.

 

[_Superman_]

You could add Green Lantern to that as well even though The Mummy would still win.

 

[_Superman_]

If they'd gone from Dracula Untold which actually set the universe up a whole lot better they'd never had the same problem, it was a really good film I thought, but I'm guessing they wanted this 'flash' big name launch b*ll*cks.

Agreed Dracula Untold was actually a pretty good movie. It's just a shame it didn't do better.

 

[psylockolussus]

The Mummy especially Universal was so keen with creating their own cinematic universe that they had dates set, actors and creative crew set up for the future films. What a failure.

 

[Deck Rickard]

You could add Green Lantern to that as well even though The Mummy would still win.

Ah, good call. Yeah, I remember WB making this big announcement that GL would be the start of their universe or something.

 

[Deck Rickard]

The Mummy especially Universal was so keen with creating their own cinematic universe that they had dates set, actors and creative crew set up for the future films. What a failure.

They even released a photoshopped picture where they pretended to bring all the key players together!

 

[Enriquespy]

I'm glad people still remember Dracula Untold was the false start to the Dark Universe.

(was the Radcliffe-professor X Frankenstein supposed to be a part of it too or I'm mis-remembering?)

 

[Spider-Fan]

I have seen neither Robin Hood nor The Mummy, but I have a strong feeling it is one of those 2.

 

[Mandon Knight]

I'm glad people still remember Dracula Untold was the false start to the Dark Universe.

(was the Radcliffe-professor X Frankenstein supposed to be a part of it too or I'm mis-remembering?)

Unconnected I believe, but don't quote me.

 

[Enriquespy]

Unconnected I believe, but don't quote me.

I do as I want.

 

[Dark Raven]

What's Iron Man even doing in that list? That's like asking what is the worst comic book movie of all time and then listing Avengers Infinity War alongside the likes of Catwoman, Fant4stic, Elektra, Steel etc.

 

[Mandon Knight]

I do as I want.

Sorry I meant the DR/JMc film was unconnected to the Dark Universe.

 

[Deck Rickard]

I'm glad people still remember Dracula Untold was the false start to the Dark Universe.

(was the Radcliffe-professor X Frankenstein supposed to be a part of it too or I'm mis-remembering?)

No, I don't think so. Javier Bardem was supposed to play Frankenstein's monster in a Bride of Frankenstein movie.

That Radcliff/McAvoy movie was horrid though. It wanted to be the RDJ Sherlock Holmes so badly but it was just a piece of garbage.

 

[Deck Rickard]

What's Iron Man even doing in that list? That's like asking what is the worst comic book movie of all time and then listing Avengers Infinity War alongside the likes of Catwoman, Fant4stic, Elektra, Steel etc.

I didn't want to include it but I figured that if I didn't, I'd get accused of having "blind allegiance to Marvel" or whatever. I really didn't want to put it on the list because it's amazing.

 

[psylockolussus]

X-Men 2000 wasn't kicking off a cinematic universe. It got a sequel due to the film's success but they weren't mapping out a handful of films at the time it was going to be released. While Transformers 2007 is your common start of a movie franchise, not exactly similar to what Mcu was aiming for when they released their 1st film.

Robin Hood having a cinematic universe? its news to me. The Mummy certainly takes the cake.

 

[ironwez20]

What universe could u spin off of Robin Hood? Lol

 

[Dark Raven]

I didn't want to include it but I figured that if I didn't, I'd get accused of having "blind allegiance to Marvel" or whatever. I really didn't want to put it on the list because it's amazing.

I don't really think it would show you have some allegiance to Marvel at all. But if you're asking which is the worst film to kick off a cinematic universe, then Iron Man is really the only successful one on there that has actually produced a strong cinematic universe. All the other cinematic universes have either failed outright, stalled or not done that well.

Even if someone didn't favour Marvel at all or didn't like Iron Man, they can't really call it the worst film to kick of a cinematic universe by any counts considering how successful the whole thing has been.

 

[Spider-Fan]

The Merrimen-a-verse?