If you take a look at the marquee of any decent-sized movie theater these days, there’s a high probability that at least one of the movies being shown is part of a shared cinematic universe. The most well-known of these is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but there are also the DC superhero movies, M. Night Shaymalan’s Unbreakable-Split-Glass trilogy, Godzilla and the MonsterVerse, Kevin Smith’s View Askewniverse, Sony’s Spider-Man-adjacent movies like Morbius, and more.
However, these are not the first cinematic universes. Back in 1943, Frankenstein met the Wolf Man in the appropriately titled Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, a monster mash-up that introduced the concept of shared continuity to the Universal Monsters movies. It’s a piece of movie history — and a pretty entertaining creature feature — now available for streaming on Peacock.
Exploring the Universal Monster movie Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, the inception of the initial shared cinematic universe
By the time Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman was released in 1943, Universal had already put out four Frankenstein movies, with The Wolf Man, released in 1940, proving to be a commercial success. Having created sequels for The Mummy, The Invisible Man, and Dracula, the logical next step was a crossover. Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman serves as a direct sequel to The Wolf Man and 1942’s The Ghost of Frankenstein, despite the time period disparities between the two franchises.
The film features Lon Chaney Jr. reprising his role as Larry Talbot, the unfortunate man who becomes a werewolf and seemingly dies at the end of the first movie. Resurrected by graverobbers who remove the wolfsbane from his body, Talbot struggles with his curse and seeks a way to end his torment, leading him to Dr. Frankenstein’s castle in search of a solution in the doctor’s notes. There, he encounters the frozen body of Frankenstein’s Monster (portrayed by Bela Lugosi) and chaos ensues as he frees the creature.
The title of the movie is apt: It’s Frankenstein meeting the Wolfman, not battling against each other. The two iconic monsters have a brief fight at the end of the film after a failed attempt to transfer Talbot’s life force to the undead monster, resulting in both being swept away by a flood caused by a villager.
Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman laid the groundwork for subsequent “monster rally” films like House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula, as well as the Abbott and Costello comedy-horror crossovers. While it took several decades for the concept of a shared crossover cinematic universe to become widespread, the Godzilla series also adopted this approach in the ’60s by incorporating monsters like Rodan and Mothra into the franchise after their solo debuts. The rise of superhero movies further solidified the idea of shared universes, given the long history of crossovers in the comics they were based on. Universal made an attempt to establish a new cinematic universe with 2017’s The Mummy, but the Dark Universe never took off and lacked the legacy of the classic monster movies from the ’40s and ’50s.
Creating a successful cinematic universe is no easy task. Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman achieved it, and for a glimpse into the origins of the modern movie landscape, it’s worth checking out on Peacock.
Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman is currently available for streaming on Peacock, alongside a plethora of new horror films just in time for Spooky Season.