I would have believed ya Joe, if...

The last minute change of director on Universal's much troubled horror re-vamp The Wolf Man (12.02.10), meant that the man who stepped in (Joe Johnston) can't have had much lead time to prepare the movie he wanted to make. Usually what happens in these circumstances, and it was certainly true of Burton's Planet of the Apes, is that the new guy mostly takes on the reigns from a production where a lot of the crucial and major decisions have already been made.

Emily Blunt's memorable hide in the woods from the Wolf Man that featured in the trailer, makes up a new poster debuted at Cinematical. Casting, script, set designs, technical crew, budget, etc. All that is left for a director during filming is photography (usually with the cinematographer already hired by the previous guy), making sure he gets the best out of the talent pool already assembled and the correct placing of the camera. Of course editing and the post-production stage is a completely different ball game and we'll get to that below. One of the reasons why I mention all this, is that the two noir-ish/kind of arty posters for The Wolf Man that have been released online today don't really don't shout out UNIVERSAL MAINSTREAM HORROR flick, not in the way a Van Helsing or a movie from The Mummy franchise did. Or even 1992's Dracula. This is an arty Wolf Man. My eyes believe this to be the CGI version of Del Toro's Wolfman in the second new poster which debuted this time at AICN. I presume part of this reason is what Joe Johnston told Harry Knowles at AICN during a set visit many months back (but just published this week) that he was aiming to go"classic noir"with The Wolf Man is exactly and not the "winky-winky" at the audience kind of movie that the previous Universal remakes I mentioned, went for. This, in many ways, is proven by the poster campaign... It's all well and good Johnston spouting out these grandiose ideas of his, BUT, if he really wanted to make the movie "classic noir" then; A) Why didn't you film it in black and white? (obviously the studio would have gone bananas at this suggestion but at least tell us you tried to convince them to go this way, just so we know you realise that when you say classic noir, you really mean it). B) Why didn't you use a Rick Baker makeup'd Benicio del Toro for 100% of the film and not fall back on the CGI to make it look cooler for a younger audience, the way it would seem you have done. C) You wouldn't have fired atmospheric composer Danny Elfman, the man who with Edward Scissorhands, Batman, Batman Returns, Sleepy Hollow and Ed Wood, completely understood how to score a movie in a classic early 20th century fashion, and instead bring in the loud, flashy, MTV generation action composer Paul Haslinger (Underworld, Crank, Wolverine, Death Race). His CV is hardly one of classical scores? Alas we should have seen this coming. The first trailer (which I can't find a link too) for The Wolf Man was high on creepy, but the second one was full of quick cuts, loud music dictating the action and of course the CGI synethesized to a heavy beat. Elfman's score wouldn't have worked with the picture Johnston eventually made. Composer Danny Elfman, fired from The Wolf Man. Cinemusic, who carry the composer replacement scoop say that Elfman's score is 100% complete and that it was a "traditional, grandly gothic effort a la Kilar€™s Bram Stoker€™s Dracula" but it is being discarded from production completely. Elfman who is now full on scoring Burton's Alice in Wonderland couldn't come back for another go (apparentaly), so Haslinger needs to come up with a full score during January, in time for it's release a month later.