Others bear no relation to the original film beyond the inclusion of a plot involving a mad scientist and a person who becomes invisible as a result of their experiments.

[5] In Phil Hardy's book Science Fiction, a review stated that the Invisible Man's Revenge was basically a rewrite of The Walking Dead (1936).

[7] Abbott and Costello was described by the authors of Universal Horrors as being a semi-remake of Returns with the title character rewritten as a boxer framed for murder.

[8] Hanke described The Invisible Woman as being "curious offshoot" of the series, being directed by A. Edward Sutherland, who specialized in comedy films.

Wealthy lawyer Richard Russell funds inventor Professor Gibbs creation of an invisibility machine.

They test it first on Kitty Carroll, a department store model who uses her new power to get revenge former boss, Mr. Growley who fired her, all while gangsters are out to steal the invisibility machine.

Bud Alexander and Lou Francis are private-eyes and meet champion boxer Tommy Nelson, who is wanted for the murder of his manager.

[12] Universal Pictures first announced the development of The Invisible Man Returns in March 1939, around the time Son of Frankenstein (1939) was performing well at the box office.

[14] Gertrude Purcell, who had written the screenplay for the western comedy Destry Rides Again (1939) was hired to add a woman's perspective on the story.

[7] Universal first announced the plan for The Invisible Man's Revenge on June 10, 1943, with the hopes of having Claude Rains performing in the lead.

[24][25] Peter Hutchings responded to the negative retrospective reception of 1940s Universal horror product, saying "is often intertwined with a prejudice against the sequel itself as a particular cinematic format, with the sequelisation process seeming to mark the moment where innovation ends and exploitation begins.

[28] Special effects involving the invisible man unravelling himself from bandages and objects moving themselves across the rooms were described by Newman as being "lifted" from the 1933 film.

[35] A remake entered development as of February 2016, when Johnny Depp was announced to star with Ed Solomon writing the script, and Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan producing.

[39][40] When a trailer was released that December, Robert Moran of The Sydney Morning Herald commented that it was "met with the kind of confusion that could rattle a filmmaker, not to mention a studio.

It seems monster movie fans, long-attuned to the bandage-wrapped antics of The Invisible Man of yore, weren't expecting Whannell's allegory on domestic violence trauma".

[41] Whannell commented on his change from the norm on the style, explaining that he knew there was going to be some backlash as he was "modernizing it and centering it not around the Invisible Man but his victim".