Wolf Man: Leigh Whannell drew inspiration from The Fly for his monster revival

There’s a reboot of the classic Universal Monsters property The Wolf Man coming our way from Blumhouse Productions and The Invisible Man (2020) director Leigh Whannell, aiming for a January 17, 2025 theatrical release – and while speaking to Empire, Whannell revealed that he drew inspiration from David Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly when he was crafting his take on this classic werewolf story.

Whannell said, “What The Fly did that a lot of other practical-effects-driven horror movies from that time did not do was bring the tragedy out of these practical effects. It wasn’t a joke in The Fly. It was there to illustrate someone who was dying of an illness. I was like, ‘I’ve got to do that.’ It’s not about being funny or icky or gory. This is about the tragedy of the human body falling apart.“

The leads of this version of Wolf Man are Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, both of whom were in the 2011 film Martha Marcy May Marlene. Abbott is taking on the role of a man whose family is being terrorized by a lethal predator. Garner is playing his wife. Sam Jaeger is also in the cast, along with child actress Matilda Firth, playing a character named Ginger: “Female, 10 years old, white. Blake and Charlotte’s daughter. Smart, precocious, and strong. When her family decides to leave the city for a quieter life in a remote area, she faces her biggest fear, the possibility of losing one or both of her parents forever.”

Whannell also told Empire that Garner is “the emotional compass of this film, and she’s going to be what Shelley Duvall was in The Shining. You don’t get scared in The Shining without Shelley Duvall. And so I was like, ‘I’ve got to find someone who can drink up the audience’s empathy.’ And she did an incredible job.“

When Wolf Man was first announced in 2020, Ryan Gosling was set to star in it – and in fact, it got rolling when Gosling pitched this take on the concept of The Wolf Man to Universal, and his idea was then fleshed out into a screenplay by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, a writing duo that previously worked on Orange Is the New Black. (Blum also happens to be married to Blumhouse founder Jason Blum.) At the time, it was said the story was “believed to be set in present times and in the vein of Jake Gyllenhaal’s thriller Nightcrawler with an obvious supernatural twist.” The final version of the script is credited to Blum and Angelo, as well as Whannell and his wife Corbett Tuck.

Whannell first signed on to direct the film in 2020, but dropped out the following year. That’s when Gosling’s Blue Valentine and Place Beyond the Pines director Derek Cianfrance came on board. Gosling and Cianfrance both stepped away from Wolf Man early last year… and then Whannell came back. A collaboration between Blumhouse and Motel Movies, Wolf Man is being produced by Jason Blum. Gosling receives an executive producer credit alongside Ken Kao, Bea Sequeira, Mel Turner, and Whannell.

The Wolf Man reboot was recently given an R rating for bloody violent content, grisly images and some language. This isn’t the first time a reboot of The Wolf Man has been given an R rating, as the 2010 reboot that was directed by Joe Johnston and starred Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Emily Blunt was also rated R, for bloody horror violence and gore.

During his BlumFest appearance at New York Comic Con 2024 last month, Whannell told ComingSoon that he hopes viewers will “love it. I hope they’re scared. I hope that they’re emotional about it. So, I want it to be a tragedy. I want it to be emotional. I also want it to scare the shit out of them. You know, I want people to see it in theaters.“

Are you looking forward to Wolf Man, and are you glad to see Whannell referencing the likes of The Fly and The Shining when talking about it? Let us know by leaving a comment below.