Dateline: Vaguestan. Universal and Mattel have announced they’re teaming up to make a musical movie based on an unnamed new toy line. The toys are somehow connected to monsters. That is all.
Well, that is mostly all. Apparently Mattel is launching a new monster oriented toyline – the specifics of which they’re keeping under wraps – and they’ve teamed with Universal to make a musical based on the characters and ‘mythology’ (that word! That overused word!) of the toy line. Universal is bringing on Craig Zadan, Neil Meron, Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman – the producers of the musical version of Hairspray – to make the movie. But what the hell is it? Nobody’s talking.
“Neil and I have been looking for an original movie musical franchise
for several years, and we feel this one is it. It really has long-term
potential, and it will spin the monster genre on its ear,” Zadan said in a press release to Variety.
If the movie is happening at Universal does it indicate that Mattel is doing some version of that studio’s classic monsters (all of whom are essentially public domain anyway)? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.