Yahoo Movies 'Invisible Man' director Leigh Whannell to helm 'Wolfman' movie with Ryan Gosling for Blumhouse
Leigh Whannell will follow up Blumhouse hit The Invisible Man with another major gig for the studio at the helm of the Wolfman movie, which has Ryan Gosling attached to star.
Deadline reported that Whannell is in negotiations to direct the film and studio boss Jason Blum shared the news on his Twitter page.
Whannell will also write a story treatment for the movie, with Orange is the New Black duo Lauren Schuker Blum set to pen the screenplay.
Read more: Whannell explains Invisible Man changes
Just as with The Invisible Man, the film is inspired by one of the classic Universal Monsters, with Lon Chaney Jr. portraying the character in a series of movies beginning with The Wolf Man in 1941.
He would go on to reprise the role in four sequels throughout the 1940s.
The new project and The Invisible Man were both scavenged from the ashes of Universal’s planned Dark Universe, which was set to unite many of the studio’s most famous monsters.
An infamous photo of the series’ starry ensemble was released in May 2017, but the lukewarm response to the Tom Cruise-starring The Mummy put an end to the ambitious plans.
Read more: Universal boss admits Dark Universe failure
The Invisible Man, which starred Elisabeth Moss as an abuse survivor menaced by her husband despite his apparent suicide, was entirely separate to any franchise continuity.
On a budget of just $7m (£5.5m), the movie earned an impressive $126m (£100m) globally and was a hit with critics to the tune of a 91% approval score on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Whannell/Gosling collaboration will not be the first time that Universal has rebooted its werewolf character.
Benicio del Toro played the title role in the 2010 movie The Wolfman, directed by Joe Johnston.
The film has been dubbed one of the most costly box office bombs of all time, earning just $140m (£111m) worldwide against a huge $150m (£119m) budget.
Read more: Jason Blum pays tribute to Moss’s Invisible Man performance
With Gosling and Whannell at the forefront, however, and the enviable track record of Blumhouse, the chances seem good for this latest take on the furry fiend.
