Interconnected cinematic universes are part and parcel of moviegoing these days. Of course, Marvel is the “King Daddy” of modern cinematic universes with the MCU. But there’s also the Monsterverse, the Conjuring universe, and the DCEU (now just the DCU). However, the very concept of a cinematic universe began way back in the 1940s with the Universal Monsters . What Universal did back then set the stage for Toho and their kaiju films, and quite literally everything else that came after. But it’s a success that they themselves have yet to replicate, even though others have, with their same characters.

The Universal Monsters films came in phases. And unlike Marvel today, there was never any original intent to create any kind of shared universe. The two films that launched the first phase

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