Universal Forms a Legendary Partnership to Create Monsters

Steve Barton   |  

May 7, 2014

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Flipboard
• Share on Reddit
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on WhatsApp
• Share via Email

The wait is nearly over for Legendary Pictures’ Godzilla, but that doesn’t mean they’re getting out of the monster game. In fact, thanks to a wondrous partnership with Universal they have more beasts on tap both great and small. Read on!

Variety reports that Legendary has officially come on board to back two other monster movies with new studio partner Universal Pictures, Jurassic World and Dracula Untold.

The films are the first Legendary will help co-finance with Universal as part of a five-year deal that kicked off in January. Both projects fit in well with Legendary’s taste for fanboy and genre fare. Jurassic World is shooting now under the helm of Colin Trevorrow, while Gary Shore’s Dracula Untold will be released in October with Luke Evans as the iconic vampire.

Godzilla will be Legendary’s biggest test to date when it stomps into theaters May 16, under the deftful direction of Gareth Edwards. The film is significant, since it marks Legendary’s swan song from Warner Bros. following a largely successful partnership that ended bitterly.

Jurassic World stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Omar Sy, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson and Vincent D’Onofrio, and bows June 12, 2015.

Tull is certainly taking a sizable risk with the film about the iconic Japanese monster. Legendary put up three-quarters of the $160 million budget, and he personally chose 38-year-old Gareth Edwards to direct the tentpole, even though the helmer had made only one movie before — the $500,000-budgeted Monsters, for which he produced the visual effects on his home computer and wrote the script.

Tull and Edwards have a lot to prove to audiences soured by the last Godzilla remake: Roland Emmerich’s 1998 take on the atomic fire-breathing lizard for Sony Pictures. That film scared up just $379 million worldwide and left Sony without a hoped-for new franchise, and toy and promotional partners like Taco Bell with piles of unsold merchandise.

“I’ve been a Godzilla fan literally my whole life,” says Tull. “He’s a huge global icon for a reason.” Echoing a complaint many had about Emmerich’s version, he adds, “I’m always puzzled as a fan when you take things so far it’s unrecognizable.”

Subscribe to our Newsletter