Universal's mega-budgeted Monsters Cinematic Universe kicks off this summer with the Tom Cruise-starring The Mummy, but there are plenty more plans to be made.

With the lack of a major superhero franchise to rival Warner Bros. or Disney, the studio are now looking towards their own back-catalogue of properties to conjure some potential blockbuster competition, basing its own cinematic universe on the classic Universal library of movie monsters.

Alongside The Mummy, individual films have been pitched for Dracula (who is likely to get a second reboot after the failure of last year's Dracula Untold), The Wolfman, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, The Bride of Frankenstein, and Van Helsing, with them inevitably ramping up to an Avengers-style team-up movie.

Deadline reports that Will Beall has now been hired to write a remake of 1954's The Creature From the Black Lagoon, with an eye for the character to also join in on the Monsters Universe.

Beall's certainly boasting some experience in the underwater adventure category, having just penned the screenplay for DC's upcoming Aquaman film; though he's also behind Gangster Squad, The Legend of Conan, and the TV series of Training Day.

The film will be produced by Chris Morgan and Alex Kurtzman, who are essentially the masterminds of the Monster Universe, with Kurtzman directing The Mummy.

The Mummy - Trailer 2