Before Hugh Jackman played the title character in Van Helsing, it had been about fifty years since there was an official Universal Picture movie that had all of the classic Universal monsters in the same film.
That movie was of course Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
If you’re not familiar with them, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were a comedy double act and one of the biggest box office attractions throughout the 1940s and early 1950s. They did all kinds of movies that put the two as different characters almost every movie, and eventually they struck gold with their biggest hit; Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
As well as the Frankenstein’s monster, it also featured the wolfman and Count Dracula, as well as a cameo from the Invisible Man. Combining these with the comedy duo of Abbott and Costello actually made this the first example of a shared cinematic universe about half a century before Marvel did it with the MCU.
Interestingly, with Hugh Jackman joining the MCU in Deadpool and Wolverine, he became the first actor to be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Universal Monsters and their adjacent Dark Universe.
Of course, the Hugh Jackman led Van Helsing movie didn’t spawn any sequels and was very standalone, although as was the case with many of the previous Universal Monsters films, they don’t all connect and follow a strict continuity.
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