Oh Wolf Man. Always my favorite of the Universal Monsters, The Wolf Man seems to have been getting short shrift for the last few decades, and things aren’t about to get better. While I had hoped that all of the rumors and bad buzz I had heard about the upcoming remake (starring Benicio Del Toro and directed by Joe Johnston after Mark Romanek dropped out at the last minute) were just the usual bullshit, Universal has all but confirmed the movie is a stinker by moving it from a fall date to February 2010.
And that’s after Johnston and company did massive reshoots and supposedly monster redesigns. It’s possible that The Wolf Man will benefit from this move – horror films do pretty well in the dregs of winter, after all. I call it White Noise Effect – but the reality is that this is another attempt at the Universal Monsters that has failed. First Van Helsing, now this. Even the Mummy is in decline.
At this point I’ll probably really enjoy The Wolf Man – my expectations couldn’t be any lower.