The 2023 movies calendar has brought a double dose of Dracula, as along with Nicolas Cage playing the iconic vampire in Renfield (which is now streamable with a Peacock subscription), a more monstrous version of the fanged menace is being spotlighted in The Last Voyage of the Demeter. These movies follow several years after the Dark Universe franchise collapsed, and had that shared continuity ever truly gotten off the ground, Dracula was going to be a major player. On that note, Demeter director André Øvredal addressed on CinemaBlend’s ReelBlend podcast whether his movie was ever intended to be used as the Dark Universe’s Dracula movie.
Jake Hamilton, who cohosts ReelBlend with our own Sean O’Connell and Kevin McCarthy, recently spoke with Øvredal (whose other credits include Trollhunter and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) about his work on The Last Voyage of the Demeter, and among the topics brought up was if this movie was ever meant to exist in the Dark Universe. Here’s how the filmmaker responded:
No, obviously this is an Amblin movie. It’s a DreamWorks movie, and it’s where it’s been developed. So it’s not part of that universe, it was never thought to be. It was more a standalone thing. But I do see a lot of people are linking it with the Dark Universe, which is fun… In its initial inception of being those huge movies, it could have been great. And also, additionally now that they’re more into smaller, interesting takes on the monsters, I also think those movies are great. The Invisible Man is a classic already.
Like Renfield, The Last Voyage of the Demeter is distributed by Universal Pictures, a studio that prominently featured characters like Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, The Wolf Man, The Mummy and The Invisible Man with its Universal Monsters line of movies from the 1930s to the 1950s, and has continued to spotlight them in various ways in the decades since. But as André Øvredal, Demeter is also produced by Amblin Partners and DreamWorks Pictures, among other companies, so it was never intended to be part of a big franchise. That said, Øvredal does welcome Demeter being mentioned in the same breath as this almost-franchise, and also shared his appreciation for Universal’s other more recent monster movies, specifically mentioning 2020’s The Invisible Man starring Elisabeth Moss and Oliver Jackson-Cohen.
Although 2017’s The Mummy is officially the first and only Dark Universe movie, there was a time when there was talk about 2014’s Dracula Untold potentially being part of that continuity. Ultimately, it didn’t matter either way, as The Mummy critically and commercially underperformed. From there, Universal decided to scrap the franchise before it properly took off and instead kept making standalone monster movies. The next movie up in that corner of the studio’s library is the untitled feature being directed by Scream VI duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett starring Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, Giancarlo Esposito and more.
Based off the “The Captain’s Log” chapter from Bram Stoker’s original Dracula novel, The Last Voyage of the Demeter follows the doomed inhabitants of the vessel that transported Dracula from Transylvania to England. Its cast includes Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian and Javier Botet, among others. Demeter has been met with mixed critical reception, with CinemaBlend’s own Eric Eisenberg giving it 2 out of 5 stars in his review. You can judge the movie for yourself in theaters now.
