Universal Pictures had big plans for Van Helsing. Released in the summer of 2004, the movie starred Hugh Jackman as the titular vampire hunter from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, here reimagined as a younger action-adventure man in a 19th-century style mash-up of Indiana Jones and Jame Bond movies. After successfully remaking The Mummy for Universal Pictures with Brendan Fraser, Stephen Sommers was brought on board to breathe new life into Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolfman. The hope was to not only reintroduce these classic monsters to a new generation of viewers but create a new franchise.

Despite an extensive marketing campaign, Van Helsing was a box-office disappointment grossing $120 million at the domestic box office against a budget of $170 million. While its worldwide total was $300 million, it was not seen as enough to justify Universal Pictures’ long-term plans and the studio quickly canceled plans for a franchise. Yet Universal Pictures had a lot of plans in developments, and this is a look at what might have been.

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Van Helsing Movie

     Universal Pictures

The first part of the Van Helsing franchise was, of course, the movie itself. Universal Pictures really wanted to reinvent their iconic movie monsters and wanted to replicate the formula that had worked for both The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. This was not only attempted by bringing on Stephen Sommers as the director but also with the release date of May 7, 2004, which was six years to the date that The Mummy opened in 1999.

The Mummy took the classic monster in an action-adventure tone, so it made sense to do the same with Van Helsing. While The Mummy was very much inspired by Indiana Jones, Van Helsing drew heavily from James Bond films. Universal Pictures likely was hoping to cash in on the lack of James Bond movies as Die Another Day was released two years prior and development on what would become Casino Royale was still underway.

Van Helsing did open at number one in its opening weekend with $51 million, but it lost the second-weekend spot to Troy. It then had to face stiff competition from other summer movies like Shrek 2, The Day After Tomorrow, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Spider-Man 2. Van Helsing was out of the top five by Memorial Day weekend, and out of the top 10 after just six weeks of the release.

Van Helsing: The London Assignment

     Zenescope

As was the case with many big-budget action films Van Helsing got a massive marketing push, which included a tie-in video game and a novelization. Universal also took a chance and wanted to expand the franchise with an animated prequel film. Van Helsing: The London Assignment acts as a prequel to the movie, showcasing Van Helsing’s first encounter with Mr. Hyde which is referenced in the film. The movie was released on video four days after the movie opened in theaters, hitting retail shelves on May 11, 2004.

This is one of two Universal Pictures movies that summer to release an animated film to build anticipation for a new movie, the other being The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury which would bridge the gap between Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick. While it is unlikely these were done in an attempt to launch an animated series like The Mummy had, it was an attempt by Universal Pictures to build the Van Helsing brand up as a multimedia component with various tie-ins.

Van Helsing Sequel

Universal Pictures was so confident that Van Helsing would be a hit at the box office, they began development on a sequel before the first movie opened. They even paid to keep the original Transylvania sets, as they figured they would need to come back for it and other projects. However, the film’s poor box office eventually resulted in the sequel being scrapped.

No word was ever given on what the plans for Van Helsing 2 were. Having already used Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolfman, they would need to use other monsters to draw audiences in. The Mummy already had its own franchise so that was ruled out. Rumors have circulated it might have included the Creature from the Black Lagoon, while there were also The Invisible Man and The Bride of Frankenstein available for use. A one-shot comic published by Dark Horse titled Van Helsing: From Beneath the Rue Morge showed Van Helsing going up against Doctor Moreau in what could have been an exciting sequel.

Transylvania Television Series

While it is now common to have television series and movies closely interconnected, as is the case with the MCU series on Disney+, in 2004 it was a bold idea and not really something any studio was doing. Universal Pictures might have broken new ground had their Van Helsing plans gone through. In April 2004, a month before Van Helsing opened in theaters, they announced they were greenlighting a television series titled Transylvania.

The plan was to use the set from the original film, and Universal Studios paid to maintain the structures so that they could return to film there, and the series was planned to premiere on NBC in the fall of 2004. However, just two weeks into Van Helsing’s release, the studio canceled the plans for the television series.

Universal Theme Park Plans

Similar to The Mummy, Universal wanted to bring Van Helsing into their theme parks. Revenge of the Mummy opened at Universal Theme Parks in the summer of 2004 the same year Van Helsing was released, likely hoping to pave the way for Van Helsing-themed attractions.

The first was Van Helsing: Fortress Dracula, a walk-through experience where guests would encounter the monsters from the movie. It opened at Universal Studios Hollywood on May 7, 2004, to coincide with the release of the movie. While the movie was a box office disappointment and faded quickly, Universal did keep the attraction at the park for a bit likely hoping it would generate a passionate fanbase similar to how the box office flop Waterworld has endured thanks to the stunt show at Universal Studios Hollywood. It did manage to last for two years but finally closed on November 4, 2006, to be replaced by Universal’s House of Horrors and later The Walking Dead.

Van Helsing’s Legacy

     Universal

Despite being a box office disappointment, and Universal Pictures canceling the many Van Helsing spin-off and sequel projects, the movie did leave some unexpected impacts. The first was that in its promotion of the movie, Universal Pictures released the collections of Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolfman on DVD. The DVD sets were such a hit, the studio quickly followed them up with collections for The Mummy, The Invisible Man, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. These DVDs (and Van Helsing itself) likely introduced an entire generation of kids to the classic Universal Monsters.

Universal Pictures attempted to reboot their classic monsters again with The Dark Universe, and one long in development project they spent years working on was a reboot of Van Helsing that at one point was going to star Tom Cruise before he moved on to The Mummy. In 2020, it was reported the Van Helsing reboot was still planned with James Wan producing and Overlord director Julius Avery set to helm.

Perhaps the only worthwhile Van Helsing project has been the completely unrelated Syfy original series (now on Netflix) Van Helsing, created by the great Neil LaBute. That weird epic had a female Van Helsing and a completely different post-apocalyptic world, and ran for five wonderfully campy seasons.

Despite Van Helsing’s franchise plans being canceled, there’s clearly value in the character, and maybe sometime soon the franchise will get the spotlight the studio planned for it back in 2004.