‘Where’s the wolf part?’: Ryan Gosling dodges a silver bullet as furry first look at ‘Wolf Man’ reboot gets universally panned

Blumhouse has been having a rough go of things lately. Oct. 6 of 2023 was the last time the production house birthed a good film in Totally Killer; a release date that also happened to coincide with stomach-churningly bad The Exorcist: Believer.

Since then, Five Nights at Freddy‘s, Night Swim, Imaginary, and AfrAId have delivered miss after miss after miss for the production company, so it’s hard to blame anyone who’s abandoned all hope. Now, imagine being in such a position and then stumbling upon this promo for Blumhouse’s upcoming Wolf Man film:

Look, cynicism is tired, it really is. But if you’re a production company known for your horror flicks and are finding yourself on a hot streak of stinkers, you should have some foresight on how people might react when the titular Wolf Man would better belong in a film called Man Who’s Having a Pretty Rough Go of Things Right Now.

Indeed, if this costume ends up being true to form in the final cut of the film, then who’s to say this won’t feel like a Wolf Man film in name alone?

It makes much more sense why Ryan Gosling‘s pitch to remake and star in a Wolf Man movie never manifested with him in the lead role. If this is Blumhouse’s idea for a Wolf Man, then Gosling’s handsome mug would offset this creative vision by several orders of magnitude.

With the admittedly justified reactions out of the way, let’s play a bit of devil’s advocate. The above tweet raises an interesting point: why show off the monster design this early? Would that reveal not best be kept for the film itself?

Exactly, so it’s entirely possible that the figure we’re seeing here isn’t the complete transformation, or perhaps this is just one of the phases of the Wolf Man’s transformation, with different forms serving a different narrative purpose. A Wolf Man film, after all, needs to be interested in humanity’s relationship to their mammalian impulses, and having multiple forms would go a long way in examining that idea.

“Needs,” of course, implies that this Wolf Man film has any intention of trying to be good. And like we’ve been saying, Blumhouse’s slate for the last year or so suggests that making a good movie is one of the more negotiable aspects of getting Blumhouse on board for production.

But here’s the thing: Wolf Man is being spearheaded by Leigh Whannell, whose last two writer-director efforts included Upgrade and The Invisible Man; both of which were excellent. The presence of three other screenwriters on the project isn’t ideal, but a tried-and-true creative like Whannell at the helm means the Wolf Man could very well surprise us.

At the very least, we can expect an entirely competent, honest effort at making a Wolf Man movie, and we’ll see how well the whole thing meets our expectations when it hits theaters on Jan. 17, 2025.