As one of Universal’s classic monsters, The Wolfman is about as prone to reboots and reinventions as he is turning into a lycanthrope during the full moon, with The Invisible Man‘s Leigh Whannell charged with the latest update of the hirsute tragic protagonist.
Joe Johnston’s 2010 effort boasted a delightfully unhinged performance from Benicio Del Toro, but suffered greatly from behind the scenes turmoil. It also flopped at the box office after failing to recoup the $150 million budget from theaters, even if it did bestow us with the gift of Anthony Hopkins hamming it up before transforming into a CGI werewolf straight out of a PS2-era cutscene.
There was talk that Universal were eying Dwayne Johnson for the Dark Universe’s Wolfman, which sounds so bizarre that we kind of wish we’d gotten to see it. Whannell and Ryan Gosling’s take was first announced a year and a half ago but we’ve heard nothing since, until producer Jason Blum offered a brief update in an interview with Collider.
“Wolfman, we are also working on the script, got to get the script, right. In that case, it’s Ryan Gosling not Scott Cawthon. But working on trying to get a script that he feels good about and comfortable about and excited about.”
Hardly the most illuminating response, but it does sound as though The Wolfman is making slow and steady progress through the foggy moors of development hell. One of the best actors in the business playing a werewolf is reason enough to get excited, even before Whannell’s Invisible Man showed Universal how they should have been rebooting these characters all along.
