In 2004,Hugh JackmanandKate Beckinsaleteamed up for an action-adventure picture that doubled as a love-letter to the originalUniversal Monstersfranchise. Directed byStephen Sommers(who had recently resurrectedThe Mummy),Van HelsingcombinedDraculaandFrankensteinwithThe Wolf ManandDr. Jekylland Mr. Hyde, offering audiences a new sort of action hero to root for in Jackman’s Gabriel Van Helsing. Universal had high hopes forVan Helsing, and at one point even developed a television spin-off set in the region of Transylvania. But what happened? Well, let’s just say box-office receipts matter after all.
‘Transylvania’ Would Have Expanded the ‘Van Helsing’ Universe
We don’t know much about thisVan Helsingspin-off, but we know it was calledTransylvania. The series would’ve utilized many of the sets from the original motion picture, but would’ve featured an entirely new cast. Stephen Sommers was slated to write and executive produce the series alongsideBob Ducsay, which NBC announced some eight months beforeVan Helsingeven hit theaters. Per NBC viaThe Futon Critic,Transylvaniawould have been “a character-driven soap opera,and the central figure will be a young cowboy from Texas who’s pressed into duty and becomes the sheriff in a town where oddities abound.” But this wouldn’t have been your standard monster-of-the-week show likeBuffy the Vampire Slayer. Rather,Transylvaniawould have been a semi-serialized narrative about this American sheriff as he fought to keep the peace between two different monster families who populate the town.
In preparation for the series' pickup, many believed that Universal kept the Transylvania village set (one of the most spectacular things about the production) they had built in Prague intact for the series. Unfortunately,only a few weeks intoVan Helsing’s disappointing box-office returns, NBC opted against pursuing the project any further. A pilot was deemed “too expensive” to shoot, andVan Helsingwasn’t the success story many had hoped for. Despite that, NBC-Universal figureheadJeff ZuckertoldVarietythat, “The box office has no bearing whatsoever on our plans to move forward or not.” The executive maintained that their decision to removeTransylvaniafrom NBC’s lineup was based solely on their network needs.Transylvaniaremained in development for another year, but eventually fizzled out into the Hollywood ether, never to be heard from again.
It’s a shame thatTransylvanianever happened though. If anything could be said aboutVan Helsing, it’s thatthe universe itself was always interesting, and this show might’ve been a way to properly convey that in a weekly series format. Had the show happened, it may have even connected back to Sommers’The Mummyfranchise, and could have possibly brought Hugh Jackman’s titular hero back as well. As for the identity of the Texan sheriff, my money’s on that being none other thanDraculacharacter Quincey Morris, himself a wealthy Texan who,inBram Stoker’s novel, was a major player in Dracula’s defeat. With the Count now gone, Quincey would’ve been free to write his own TV destiny on this series apart from his grisly fate in the book.
Surprise! This Universal Monster Actor Was Also in One of Your Favorite Disney Classics
It’s alive…. with a spoon full of sugar.
‘Van Helsing’ Tried To Launch a Multimedia Franchise
Of course,Transylvaniawasn’t the only project that Stephen Sommers and company used to try and launch an entire franchise around Hugh Jackman’s monster hunter. Having been successful in helping kickstart theX-Menfilms, it’s no doubt that Universal saw the potential in Jackman as Van Helsing long-term — and we’d be lying if we didn’t see it as well. Yearsbefore the studio tried again withDark Universe, they pushed the film as hard as they could,with differentVan Helsingprequels and tie-in material supplementing the original story. In addition to a tie-in video game, two different prequels were produced.
The first was the anime film,Van Helsing: The London Assignment, which immediately precedes the film. Here, Van Helsing discovers that Jack the Ripper is actually Dr. Jekyll (Dwight Schultz), leading to a confrontation with his monstrous alter-ego, Mr. Hyde (Robbie Coltrane). The second was a Dark Horse Comics one-shot story inspired by the works of bothEdgar Allan Poe(The Murders in the Rue Morgue) andH.G. Wells(The Invisible ManandThe Island of Doctor Moreau), with some ties toThe Creature From the Black Lagoonas well, titledVan Helsing: From Beneath the Rue Morgue. Unlike the anime, the comic is an interlude between the death of Mr. Hyde inVan Helsingand the character’s return to Rome in the film.
Though Hugh Jackman’sVan Helsingnever quite got off the ground,the brand has made an impact on Hollywood. Despite manyunsuccessful film reboots, television is a different story.An unrelated post-apocalyptic horror series titledVan Helsingran from 2016-2021 on SyFy, and now, 20 years after Jackman’s feature,CBS is working on a new (likewise unrelated)Van Helsingseries. You just can’t keep a good monster hunter down.
Van Helsingis available for streaming on Netflix in the U.S.
Van Helsing
The famed monster hunter is sent to Transylvania to stop Count Dracula, who is using Dr. Frankenstein’s research and a werewolf for nefarious purposes.
Watch on Netflix
