{"id":14051,"date":"2020-07-08T14:02:26","date_gmt":"2020-07-08T21:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/?p=14051"},"modified":"2020-07-08T17:10:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T00:10:00","slug":"leigh-whannell-wolfman-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/leigh-whannell-wolfman-director\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Invisible Man’ Director Leigh Whannell To Direct Ryan Gosling In ‘Wolfman’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In late May, it was announced that the Wolfman would be Universal’s next monster up with Ryan Gosling set to star in the lead role. At the time, I wrote that the studio was looking to make Wolfman<\/em> a priority<\/a> and the hunt was on for a director, with Bad Education<\/em>‘s Cory Finley one of the leading candidates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would appear that Universal has landed on someone a little closer to home to helm Wolfman<\/em>, however. THR<\/a> broke the news that The Invisible Man<\/em>‘s Leigh Whannell is in deep talks to direct. Unsurprisingly, Blumhouse is on board to produce. Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo penned the script, which is being described as having a vibe that’s a cross between Nightcrawler<\/em> and Network<\/em> with Gosling reportedly playing an anchorman who gets infected and turns into the titular Wolfman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that description, it appears it will be a tension-fueled thriller, perfect for Whannell. The Invisible Man<\/em> was a monster (hah) hit for Universal<\/a> earlier this year, grossing almost $125 million worldwide on a $28 million budget. That was in large part thanks to Elisabeth Moss’s gripping portrayal of a woman being tormented and gaslit by her abusive ex, who had figured out a way to make himself invisible. Whannell’s film was less a straight horror film as it was a psychological thriller and his deftness in layering tension with strong character work made it a standout in the genre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its success also prompted a collective sigh of relief from Universal. The studio had struggled for years to reboot their Universal Classic Monsters with the Dark Universe, but two failed starts with Dracula Untold<\/em> and The Mummy<\/em> reboot torpedoed their plans for an interconnected cinematic universe. The studio went back to the drawing board and, with the help of Jason Blum’s Blumhouse, reemerged with a new plan for these movies to be largely standalone, director-driven visions. Whannell’s Invisible Man<\/em> was both test and proof that this new direction is the smart one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with Wolfman<\/em>, Universal has various other monster movies in development. Karyn Kusama has been tapped to develop a Dracula movie<\/a> for Blumhouse. Dexter Fletcher is working on a spinoff movie about Dracula’s minion, Renfield, though with Fletcher also set to direct The Saint<\/em> reboot<\/a>, it’s unclear how quickly Renfield<\/em> will come together. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Banks is set to direct and star in The Invisible Woman<\/em>, based on an original pitch of her own, and Paul Feig is working on Dark Army<\/em>. That movie aims to be Universal’s monster equivalent of an Avengers team-up, with classic monsters and new characters appearing in the same movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No word yet on a release date, but considering they already have a lead, a director, and a script, expect Wolfman<\/em> to be fast-tracked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In late May, it was announced that the Wolfman would be Universal’s next monster up with Ryan Gosling set to star in the lead role. At the time, I wrote that the studio was looking to make Wolfman a priority and the hunt was on for a director, with Bad Education‘s Cory Finley one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":14053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,51],"tags":[37,46],"class_list":["post-14051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror","category-news","tag-news","tag-newspage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14051"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14052,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14051\/revisions\/14052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}