'Dune' Screenwriter Gives Updates on 'Justice League Dark' and 'Van Helsing'

WHILE CHATTING ABOUT HIS OSCAR-NOMINATED WORK ON 'DUNE,' JON SPAIHTS HINTED AT HIS ORIGINAL IDEAS FOR THE 2017 VERSION OF 'THE MUMMY' AND A 'VAN HELSING’ FILM THAT MAY OR MAY NOT EVENTUALLY SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY AS PART OF UNIVERSAL'S DARK UNIVERSE.

Screenwriter and author Jon Spaihts recently sat down with FilmSpeak to discuss his Oscar-nominated work on the screenplay of Denis Villeneuve's Dune, as well as the future cinematic possibilities that may await Frank Herbert's source material. During our larger conversation - which is coming soon - we also discussed his forays into Universal Pictures' Dark Universe.

Spaihts was one of the initial writers involved with the Dark Universe's debut film, the 2017 reboot of The Mummy. “I was the first writer on that Mummy movie and had an amazing time writing it, got it into production, and then Tom Cruise was attached, and everything changes when Tom Cruise is attached," said Spaihts, who shone a light on more of what his original ideas for the movie looked like. "Seven or eight massive writers worked on it, but there were a lot of bones leftover from the thing I wrote: the idea of a modern soldier awakening this ancient creature, that the ancient creature should have unfinished business with an empire from long ago."

Tom Cruise in 2017’s much-maligned ‘the Mummy’

Spaihts also elaborated on the societal commentary his original treatment intended to highlight. "So much of the story, since The Mummy was told as a Dracula retread back in the days of black and white film, is our relationship with the Middle East, which was at that time a place of exotic travel and archaeology, and is now a place of oil-driven politics and warfare, a more militaristic relationship. Putting a solider into the protagonist’s seat was interesting for that reason, and that opened up an opportunity to connect the idea of being haunted because you’ve brushed against some ancient spirit of the dead, with the ways in which soldiers are legitimately haunted and legitimately brush with death," said Spaihts. “I think that’s a general approach to stories about the supernatural. There are real demons walking the world we live in; just glance at the headlines. If you can connect the work of your supernatural demons with the ones actually wrought on the world, then I think the story will speak to you.”

The Mummy faced box office woes upon its release, causing the Dark Universe to be dead on arrival. However, with the subsequent success of The Invisible Man in 2020, and the announcements of Chris McKay's Renfield and Chloé Zhao's western-inspired Dracula, Spaihts may have been forward-thinking. Spaihts, to that end, drafted a story for a Van Helsing adaptation set in the same universe. "I co-wrote Van Helsing with Eric Heisserer, actually," said Spaihts. "We love that script. I’d love to see it be a movie someday." In regards to the setting of the film, Spaihts added, “it was part of [Universal's] broader Dark Universe push, although because it is based on a public domain novel, it stands nicely on its own. It definitely looks back towards the original roots, but it was a present-day film.”

Spaihts also worked on an idea for a Justice League Dark project, but that has fallen into a pre-production limbo similar to that of Van Helsing. "I dearly love both of those things," said Spaihts, "[but] don’t know where they stand. It’s the screenwriter’s lot that the minute a project is submitted, it’s in the hands of studios."

In our full conversation with Jon Spaihts, we discuss all things Dune, the versatile range of storytelling possibilities that science-fiction provides, and more. Stay tuned for when that interview drops in the next couple days!