A Ghoul Versus Dracula Untold

“Are you ready for ANOTHER reboot? Of course you are! Join us as we journey back to the beginning of the ORIGINAL Batman, Vlad the Impaler!”

I think it's safe to say I'm taking a break from the Andy Sidaris collection for a bit. Just a quick break though, if I can survive Bayformers, Twilight, and all NINE Hellraiser films, a bunch of Playboy Playmates armed with guns and implants sure aren't going to stop me! Today I thought we'd take a look at 2014's Dracula Untold, which was the directorial debut of Gary Shore. Shore made a name for himself directing commercials for companies such as Gatorade and Adidas, which I guess is all the qualifications you need to make a feature film in this day and age.

Dracula Untold had a case of Development Hell to make it to the silver screen, as it was originally set to be a big budget film by Alex “Dark City” Proyas and starring Sam Worthington. That didn't work out because the budget was getting sky high, so it was handed off to Shore and the writing team of Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless. Sazama and Sharpless are currently hard at word writing the script to MISSILE COMMAND, which is based off the Atari video game where three lumps of pixels blasted pixels at incoming pixels. Should be riveting. They're also credited with the screenplay for the upcoming Clue remake, because THAT totally needed a remake. I'm telling you, reboots of the Princess Bride and the Godfather are right around the corner...

After production was finished, distributor Universal Pictures saw what Marvel was doing with their Cinematic Universe and said “Me too! Me too!” so ordered reshoots to make the film a springboard to their own version. This was to be a reboot/reimagining/remake of their Universal Monsters movies, featuring characters such as Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolfman, Frankenstein, etc etc etc. Oh goody, so that means ALL movie studios will be “borrowing” this format soon doesn't it? Four delayed releases later and the film was FINALLY released on October 10, 2014 where it was ravaged by the critics and only earned 56 million dollars versus its budget of 70 million. It did MUCH better overseas because these kind of movies always do, bringing its total to 215 million and all but guaranteeing the Universal Cinematic Universe will become a thing.

A Ghoul Versus The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1!

Meanwhile, Harry strolls right into Ravencroft because I guess being fired from Oscorp has no effect on his security clearance on any of the other buildings they control. To their credit one guard does try to stop him, but Harry just kicks his ass and knocks him out with his own taser. He sneaks into Max's cell, making a deal with him: he'll free him in exchange for Max getting him into Oscorp.

Security rushes into the room, starting to drag Harry away when Max transforms into pure electricity and kills all of them. He shifts back into his physical body, somehow also forming shorts and a small power meter on the side of his head. Don't... don't ask. Don't expect ANYTHING to make any sense in this movie anymore.  Exiting the subway, Peter receives a voice mail from Gwen that she got accepted to Oxford and is leaving for England right away. Harry and Max kill their way into Oscorp tower, Max now able to form an entire bodysuit out of electricity. I don't think Kurtzman and Orci know how electricity works, I'm just saying.

A Ghoul Versus The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Part 1)

Previously on The Amazing Spider-Man...

One of the most underwhelming Spider-Man origin stories EVER was unleashed upon the world, as the entire film went through the motions of the story without really putting work into any of it. No, that's not quite accurate as they put a lot of work into making his origin as overly complex as possible. He wasn't just bitten by a radioactive spider, now it's a genetically engineered spider his dad helped create as part of a human/animal cross-genetics program and you know what, I don't even care. It was WEAKSAUCE.

It wasn't all bad though, as it at least had some very good acting and a very strong female lead that wasn't just some generic badass like we usually get in these kind of movies. Writer James Vanderbilt kept his past tendencies in check and delivered a pretty coherent tale outside of how Peter got his powers, which was a very nice breath of fresh air.

HOWEVER, in this day and age of bloated films was ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE to Fox. They let Vanderbilt write the sequel but his script must have been too simple so they brought in Hollywood's Golden Boys Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to rewrite it and make it up to par for today's Hollywood.  You remember them, don't you? With them behind the helm, this ought to be interesting.  And by interesting I mean painful.  Fire up some Hans Zimmer dubstep (!) and get ready for A Ghoul Versus The Amazing Spider-Man 2!