Months following Univeral’s success with The Invisible Man, the studio is moving forward with Wolfman as the next movie in their monster universe. The werewolf film will star Ryan Gosling (Blade Runner 2049), but there is no concrete word if he will play the titular role.
According to Variety, Universal has been meeting with several potential directors including Cory Finley (Bad Education).
Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo (“Orange Is the New Black”) wrote the script based on the pitch by Gosling.
The original Wolfman was released back in 1941 and starred Claude Rains and Lon Chaney Jr. It follows a man as he returns to his homeland and is attacked by a creature of folklore and infected with a horrific disease that transforms him into a wolfman.
Universal’s original vision for the monster universe would have included a shared universe filled with the studio’s original monsters that included the Invisible Man, Wolfman, Dracula, along with others. Labeled “The Dark Universe”, the plan was scrapped after The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise, crashed like a car going downhill with no brakes in winter. The new plan is to make a series of filmmaker-driven monster movies that pay homage to the classics, like with The Invisible Man (review) which was a major win for the studio.
