Underworld is an interesting franchise. It has everything going for it… a fantastic visual style, a wonderful background mythology, terrific fashion, a drop dead hottie in the lead (who doesn’t love Kate Beckinsale in tight leather?), a high geek appeal factor (who doesn’t like to see Werewolves fighting Vampires?) and very solid characters. The problem with the Underworld films to this point has been execution. The first film didn’t live up to its potential, but was still pretty good and showed great promise for further installments… however… Underworld 2 was a garbage pile with a great and mighty stench.
Underworld 3 is already underway, and I quite excited about it. Why? Because they seem to be righting the ship and playing to the franchises strengths for the third one. This one will be a prequel set way back in the day before Selene (Beckinsale) became a vampire and left her co-star boyfriend for the director. Oh wait… that was real life. Anyway…
A new Underworld movie with Viktor as the main character is EXACTLY what I want to see. Viktor is the best vampire character I’ve even seen in a film… or at least my favorite. Viktor (played by the always amazing Bill Nighy) embodies everything that is positive in the Underworld series (aside from tight leather).
Anyway, at a recent press conference for another one of her films, Beckinsale was asked if she’ll be making any sort of cameo in the next Underworld film, or if she’ll be returning to the role later on. Our friends over at IESB have her response:
Beckinsale did offer that she’d like to maybe one day “pull a Bruce Willis” and return to her character at 50. (How a vampire gets to 50, I have no idea.) But unfortunately for fans, there’s no cameo appearance in the upcoming third film
So basically, what’s she’s saying is that she’s finished with the Underworld series. And that’s fine. I loved her in the role… but the real potential strength of Underworld is in the mythology… and if they play that part right, the franchise can be just fine without her.
