THE WOLF MAN has a final cut, and it's Rated-R!!
Universal's picture is slapped with the R-Rating for "bloody horror, violence and gore".
At last, some good news for that troubled Universal revamp of The Wolf Man. Firstly, they have actually finished the film. A final cut is in place and Universal will now hit the planned release date of Feb 12th 2010, a date that was once again beginning to look circumspect when the studio hired new editors to try and fix the problems they were having with Joe Johnston's movie. Secondly, the movie has been given a R-Rating, which is precisely what a 21st century version of this classic tale should be given. The rating has been issued for bloody horror, violence and gore.
The big question now is how confident are Universal about their long time in coming final cut. I say if it screens widely over January to get the word out early, then we might not need to worry as much as we did right now. How good of a job did emergency editors Mark Goldblatt and Walter Murch do on this picture is anyone's guess at the moment but from where I'm sitting, they must have worked miracles to get this movie completed into a satisfactory final cut in such a quick time. Of course an R-Rating does not automatically mean it's going to be good and I still have MASSIVE reservations about this picture (most of which I detailed here) but I'm much happier today in the knowledge that in a few months time we won't be served a watered down, PG-13, Van Helsing-ised version. An American Werewolf in London is the kind of feeling I want to get from this picture, and with this news, I would say we are one step closer to that.