Renfield Proves If Universal Wants A Dark Universe Reboot, Nostalgia - Not Modernization - Is The Ticket

With the release of the Universal Pictures horror-comedy "Renfield" — starring Nicholas Hoult in the title role and Nicolas Cage as Count Dracula — fans of the studio's legendary Universal Monsters are experiencing a bit of a fright, but not the scares you expect to see with this classic brand. Instead, the fear is over the modern day setting of "Renfield," and whether Universal has learned that the idea of rebooting its classic IP with films set in the present — instead of keeping them as period films — simply doesn't work.

Consider Universal's Dark Universe, which began — and unceremoniously ended — with an ill-fated reboot of "The Mummy" in 2017. Fashioned as a Tom Cruise vehicle where the period settings of the 1932 original and 1999 Brendan Fraser update were both sidelined for a modern-day interpretation, the film felt more like "Mission: Impossible" than either the atmospheric original or its adventurous remake. Simply put, "The Mummy" was a huge gamble and its big loss at the box office was a crushing blow to the Universal Monsters franchise, especially considering Cruise — arguably one of the last huge action stars in the world — couldn't even save it. 

Six years later, will "Renfield" — which has a relatively modest production budget of $86 million — get wrapped up in the same mistakes as its mummified predecessor, and bury the prospects for more Universal Monsters films for good? When the first trailer dropped, this seemed like a real possibility.

Maybe not, though. Because in reality, the film is a surprisingly loving ode to its 1931 predecessor, the Bela Lugosi-starring "Dracula." And maybe, if Universal continues this trend, the studio will realize that leaning into nostalgia, instead of quivering away from it, is the ticket to rebuilding the Universal Monsters brand.

Even though it pulled in a seemingly respectable $409 million at the global box office, the final returns of "The Mummy" weren't enough to justify another Dark Universe film. The film cost $195 million to produce, with an additional $150 million going to distribution and marketing. By the end, Deadline estimated the film would lose $95 million when all was said and done. Fortunately for the production, it earned $34 million more than this early estimate, so it ended an approximate $61 million in the red.

To studios, obviously, the bottom line is what matters most. To fans of a property, though, what matters is when a studio pulls the classic bait-and-switch on them. Sure, there was the "reimaging" forewarning by filmmakers Chris Morgan and Alex Kurtzman, but even so, it came as a shock that "The Mummy" was the exact opposite of the period films highlighted throughout the Dark Universe promotional trailer. Quite simply, Universal Monsters fans still love the classic films because they take viewers back to a different time and place. The black and white visuals lend a dreamlike — or nightmarish, depending on your point of view — quality to it all. No matter how fans interpret the films, they're forever etched in the memories of Baby Boomers and Generation Xers, who in turn shared their love of the classics with their children and eventually, their grandchildren. 

There's a reason costumes of Universal's classic monsters are still prominent on the racks every Halloween, and the brand remains a merchandising machine. With "The Mummy," Universal ignored its built-in fanbase, instead of giving people what they wanted.

After "The Mummy" unraveled, Universal shelved "The Bride of Frankenstein," which had Bill Condon slated to direct. Condon was an inspired choice — already well-versed in the source material as the director and Oscar-winning writer of "Gods and Monsters," which chronicled Universal Monsters director James Whale's (Ian McKellen) final days. While "Gods and Monsters" mostly examined Whale's personal life, the film also recreated a pivotal scene in the original "Bride of Frankenstein" where Elsa Lanchester's (Rosalind Ayers) Bride was brought to life, giving great hope to fans that Condon's "Bride" would embrace the period setting of its forebears. 

Since the project was axed, no one outside of Condon's inner circle truly knows if his "Bride" was going to be set in the modern day. However, from what the filmmaker has revealed in interviews since, it certainly appears that way. After all, the screenplay was being written by David Koepp — the co-scribe of Cruise's "The Mummy" — and logic says if you want a (dark) universe where all your movies are connected, having the same writer on the films will make the process easier. In a 2017 interview with Collider, Condon more or less confirmed his "Bride" remake's modern-day setting, saying, "I keep thinking in a way this is at least a tribute to what Whale might have done if he'd made a third 'Frankenstein' movie and he'd done it in the 21st century."

If that's the case, perhaps it's best that this Bride of Frankenstein was kept under wraps. However, with the Dark Universe in the past, Universal's newest take on their monsters is "Renfield." And despite the contemporary wrapping paper of "Renfield," it appears that the film is actually an old-school present to classic fans.

While the homages to Bela Lugosi's Count Dracula and Dwight Frye's Renfield performances in "Dracula" are only a small part of "Renfield," the recreations of the classic moments from the original film shows how Universal is respecting the fan base by presenting at least part of the film in a period setting, and in black and white, no less. To a larger extent, though, the lifeblood of "Dracula" is flowing through the veins of "Renfield" because it logically continues their story — presenting a world where both Dracula and Renfield have survived the events of the original film, and showing where they would be today.

In this regard, "Renfield" is a sequel of sorts to the original "Dracula," rather than a reimagining. In a comedic yet relevant sort of way, it addresses how co-dependency issues and toxic relationships are quite likely for two people who are forced to deal with each other for 90 years. 

Naturally, die-hard fans are bound to have issues with "Renfield" being a horror-comedy, since there's an equal dose of horror, gore, and laughs throughout. However, one must not forget that not only Lugosi, but another Universal Monsters luminary, Lon Chaney Jr., starred with comedy greats Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in the hilarious monster mash "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" in 1948, a great precursor to today's MCU crossovers. And while he didn't don his Frankenstein's monster makeup for the film, the eponymous star of "Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff" appeared with the comedy duo a year later.