Angelina Jolie's latest directorial outing, BY THE SEA, could stand to lose Universal as much as $40 million, but despite that rather considerable loss, the studio is hoping to keep Angelina Jolie in the Universal family. In fact, that was what they had planned from the very moment the deal for BY THE SEA was struck.
Today THR published an article titled "Will 'By the Sea' Kill Hollywood "Favor" Movies?" in which they describle BY THE SEA as a favour movie, as in "we'll invest in your film if you do one of ours." Now that BY THE SEA has failed to generate much critical or commercial interest, Universal may be looking to call in that favour. According to THR, the studio is hoping that by backing Jolie's latest effort that she'll hopefully be more agreeable to starring in one of their larger more audience friendly films, namely, taking the lead in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, part of their new shared universe consisting of their famous Universal Monsters. THR mentions that another option would be a sequel to 2008's WANTED, which Universal has been trying to get off the ground for some time.
Who knows whether Angelina Jolie will take either of those options, but it's certainly some interesting casting to consider. I've loved the Universal Monster films from the moment I first saw them, but Universal's plan to build a shared universe around those iconic characters still doesn't fill me with hope that the studio knows what made those films great in the first place.
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