The Mummy and relate character are actualy owned by Universal unlike Dracula and Frankenstein.
So how did Hammer evne get away with this legally?
"It's not about Money
It's about sending a message
Everything Burns"
The film was originally set up and released theatrically by Universal-International in 1959. After the success of "(Horror of)Dracula" in 1958 Universal gave Hammer the opportunity to re-make some of their horror classics and the rest is history.
shareWouldn't that have started with "Curse of Frankenstein"? I don't know how big of a hit that movie was. I guess both that one and Dracula were technically based off of another source material.
Si Vales, Valeo.
Frankenstein is not owned by Universal nor is Dracula. These characters are from literature that is now public domain. The only one copyrighted is The Mummy and with the version of the mummy used this can be debatable since Universal only came up with the idea of a mummy rising from his tomb as a horror character.
Indeed. Actually Universal don't own any old horror-film Mummy anyway only Kharis and Imhotep (though not any Egyptian character with that name obviously) and they owned certain plot details relating to the character that were used in this film.
"Nothings gonna change my world!"
Dracula didn't enter the Public Domain till the 70s, which is why it wasn't till then we see him in Comic Books. IDK about Frankenstein.
"It's not about money.... It's about sending a Message..... Everything Burns!!!"
Dracula was public domain here in the US since the late twenties, same with Frankenstein. But copyright laws are different in the US and UK and have changed over the years. I just know that now anything pre-1920 in American or British literature is now public domain world wide.
That include Lovecraft? Awesome.
"It's not about money.... It's about sending a Message..... Everything Burns!!!"
I wonder then with this arrangement why Hammer never did a Wolfman films, they did some Werewolves I think, but never their own take on Universal's Lawrence Talbot character.
Usually, in these early ones, Lee was the Monster while Cushing was the Human lead. In a Werewolf film their kinda the same however, perhaps Cushing could have been John Talbot? He was odler but could he have passed as Lee's father?
"It's not about money.... It's about sending a Message..... Everything Burns!!!"
Hammer did have a wolfman movie. They called it Curse of the werewolf. I think they only thing they couldn't use was the actual term "Wolfman" as that's not actually the condition of being a werewolf but a title dreamned up for the universal movie and they had to be careful.
I don't think Curse of the werewolf did very well.
Was the Human form named Lawrence Talbot? If not I don't consider it The Wolfman.
shareThat film isn't about The Wolfman.
And it doesn't have Lee or Cushing either for some reason.
It's about a wolf-man (part wolf and part man). It's not the Laurence Talbot. Talbot was a character invented by Universal. He's actually copyrighted.
As was Kharis, which was what started this thread.
"When the chips are down... these Civilized people... will Eat each Other"
''And it doesn't have Lee or Cushing either for some reason.''
Neither do most Hammer horror films, to be fair.
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Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
You know, I also Wonder why Hammer never tried making a Sequel to this?
sharetehy started making teh big monies so they let 'em ride the swings for a piece of the pie
shareUniversal licensed the the rights for their classic monsters to Hammer to remake on the grounds that they got the distribution rights.
shareThe only thing about Frankenstein which Universal owns is the block head look the monster has in the 8 films they made with Karloff (3), Chaney (1), Lugosi (1)
and Strange (3).
The Evil of Frankenstein 1964 release by Universal also has the block head.
As for Dracula they own the Bela Lugosi image and of course the Wolfman is theirs
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When Benicio Del Torro did THE WOLFMAN last year he said they had to get permission. He didn't go into details but I'm sure it's a necessary part of the business.
shareWell there you go Universal owns The Wolfman as I said
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Universal threatened Hammer with legal action over the Curse Of Frankenstein. They rapidly had a change of heart when the film drew huge crowds, and cut a production deal with Hammer allowing them to remake any of their classic monsters. Hence Dracula, The Mummy, Jekyll and Hyde and Phantom Of The Opera eventually got made. Hammer had a separate deal with Columbia Pictures for the early Frankenstein movies. Hence they couldn't use the Karloff make-up. Later on for the Evil Of Frankenstein Universal came into the deal and let them use plot strands from their movies.
Don't cheese me off.I'm running out of places to hide the bodies.
Also Hammer's Curse of the Werewolf is based (albeit in a much condensed/relocated form) on the Guy Endor novel The Werewolf of Paris which features completely different characters, story and mythology to the Universal film - all they had to do was ignore the earlier makeup design (which looked quite dated by the 60's any way). Curse is actually a pretty good, imaginative little film despite it's lack of commercial success at the time and features a strong central performance from Oliver Reed.
The recent version of The Wolf-Man on the other hand is a direct remake of the original.
''Universal threatened Hammer with legal action over the Curse Of Frankenstein''
Actually, only the earlier scripts were in danger of this. By the time 'The Curse of Frankenstein' was released the film had almost nothing in common with the Universal film other than aspects of the novel (I know that Fisher, the director, had not seen the Universal film for years (if he had seen it) and I do not think the final scriptwriter had either). As stated earlier, the Hammer film is not a remake of the Universal film, it is a completely separate adaptation of the same source material.
''and cut a production deal with Hammer allowing them to remake any of their classic monsters. Hence Dracula, The Mummy, Jekyll and Hyde and Phantom Of The Opera eventually got made.''
'Dracula' was already being made when deals were being struck with Universal. It is not a remake of the Universal film and is even more dissimilar than the two Frankenstein films mentioned above. The idea that most of Hammer's films are a remake of Universal is based around US-centric stupidity in which the classic monsters of English literature are Universal creations! Likewise, 'The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll' is not a remake of any Universal film (and the classic adaptation was not an Universal film anyway. They never made a straight version) and is very original, and acts as an antithesis to the novel on many points.
'The Phantom of The Opera' again is not a remake of Universal. I do believe that they were considering remaking one of the Universal films, but they decided to just re-adapt the novel instead.
So that just leaves 'The Mummy', which is an official licensed remake of about three Kharis films!
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Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.