Who are Universal chasing for THE WOLF MAN?

By Matt Holmes / June 25, 2011

After the shock departure of director Mark Romanek from the production of THE WOLF MAN just 2 and a half weeks before filming was set to begin, Universal are clambering and working hard on finding a replacement for a $100 million project they have long seen as one of their biggest releases of 2009. AICN have word on two directors who the studio are eyeing to quickly push into the hot seat of this movie...

The first name in the frame and probably a guy who frankly can't believe his luck at this development is Breck Eisner, the director of the 2005 adventure movie SAHARA. For the last two years Eisner has been trying to get a similar sized remake of the Universal horror movie CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON off the ground but the studio would never commit to the project enough to actually go out and cast it. Now the unlikely opportunity to direct the tale of another one of the famous horror icons could finally see him direct a Universal monster movie. Still, I find the rumor a bit of a stretch after SAHARA cost rival studio Paramount an awful lot of money not just because it fell well short of it's production budget but also because of the legal costs the film had to go under after the film's release. The other director Universal are reportedly after is Matt Reeves, the rookie helmer who J.J. Abrams burst onto the scenes when he gave him the chance to direct the secret monster movie CLOVERFIELD last year. Again, this would seem a stretch for such a massive production as Reeves hasn't had the opportunity to direct a straight movie yet. I can't see Universal taking the huge gamble of putting Reeves in charge, and the word is he is wanting to move fast on a CLOVERFIELD sequel and he's also got his INVISIBLE WOMAN movie to make... something he was working on before that NYC monster hit. But the rumor of those names aren't good. When you have material as rich as the original Universal horror movie and stars like Del Toro, Hopkins & Blunt from an Andrew Kevin Walker script... it's the project of a life time for some of the bigger name directors out there. One name I'm surprised hasn't been spoken about yet is John Landis, the director obsessed with Universal horror and in particular THE WOLF MAN. I mean after all he already gave us his love letter to the original with AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. We know he loves this stuff and his schedule is free at the moment.

The guy I would personally give the world to see direct this would be David Cronenberg, and the more I think about it the more I think Del Toro would be a great protagonist of his in the vain of Jeremy Irons (I'm actually watching DEAD RINGERS whilst I write this) and Viggo Mortensen. Can you imagine how insane Cronenberg's take on THE WOLF MAN would be? How visceral, how heart-breaking in many ways, just like his take on THE FLY. But alas, we can only dream.