Following the box office successes of Dracula and Frankenstein, Universal commissioned a new monster movie inspired by the media sensation caused by the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922 and the “Curse of the Pharaohs.” Since, unlike with Dracula and Frankenstein, there was no literary source material, there were a number of iterations before they got there.

As Universal Studios latched onto iconic franchise characters that could carry a series, soon came the urge to have the various monsters meet up.