Now that The Mummy is hitting theaters this weekend, it’s time for Universal to get started on the rest of their Dark Universe films. The slate currently includes creatures like the Invisible Man, the Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Frankenstein‘s monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and so forth, but there’s one that’s a little more intriguing than the rest — partly because, in her film, she hardly even gets to speak. The Bride of Frankenstein is currently in early development, with a script by David Koepp that, if what he says is true, gives the character an agency that she lacked in her original movie.

Alex Kurtzman, director of The Mummy, explained as much during a recent interview with Den of Geek. According to him, this Bride will actually have stuff to do in her movie. How far we’ve come.

David Koepp wrote a brilliant script. A brilliant script with a very unique structure and a central relationship that I think is gonna be relatable to a lot of people while also being very true to what I believe people love about Bride. Here’s the weird thing about Bride Of Frankenstein. It is one of the weirdest movies you’ll ever see in your life. It is such a strange film. What amazes me is that the bride doesn’t show up until, what, the last ten minutes of the film? Doesn’t say anything, rejects Frankenstein, he pulls a lever and the building explodes and that’s the end of it. It’s not like she has long monologues, it’s not like you get to know her character, it’s not like she goes out into the world. There’s almost no screen time with her.

And yet everybody remembers the iconic look, the hair, who she was. Articles have been written, there’s Halloween costumes. It’s an enduring character because there’s something mysterious about her and that look, and the idea that she was created to serve another man. Which is gonna be an interesting thing to tackle in this day and age. It might be something we subvert in our film. It will be really interesting to see where we go because I actually think that Bride is maybe a lot more accessible as a character than you may think. Mostly because she’s not really a character yet based on the original Bride Of Frankenstein.

He’s certainly correct that the Bride has become an icon in her own right in spite of her short shrift in the movies, and it’s pretty cool that he and the screenwriter get that and are trying to update the character for a more discerning audience. Let’s just hope they don’t just give her a few more lines, keep the story as is, slap a few high-fives and call it quits.

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