Universal's plan to bring their classic monsters and madmen back to the screen will continue with a new version of THE WOLFMAN that's set to star Ryan Gosling.
There is no director signed on at this time, but Universal has been taking meetings with filmmakers over the past month. One of the directors they have talked with is Cory Finley, whose credits include THOROUGHBREDS and BAD EDUCATION.
Variety hears that Gosling pitched this take on the concept of THE WOLFMAN 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. It's interesting to note that Blum is married to Blumhouse founder Jason Blum. Blumhouse was behind the very successful reboot of Universal's THE INVISIBLE MAN franchise earlier this year, but they're not currently involved with this WOLFMAN project.
Variety says this WOLFMAN is
believed to be set in present times and in the vein of Jake Gyllenhaal’s thriller NIGHTCRAWLER with an obvious supernatural twist.
The Hollywood Reporter hears that
Gosling would play an anchorman who gets infected. The script has been described as having a vibe that evokes NETWORK (1976) and NIGHTCRAWLER (2014).
That makes me think of the end of THE HOWLING.
THE WOLFMAN is now one of several monster projects Universal has in the works. Others include Elizabeth Banks' THE INVISIBLE WOMAN, Dexter Fletcher's RENFIELD, Paul Feig's DARK ARMY, and Matt Stawski's musical MONSTER MASH.
Blumhouse is also working on a DRACULA film that Karyn Kusama is attached to direct. That project isn't officially set up at Universal yet, but Blumhouse is likely to float it by them at some point.
I'm a fan of Gosling and I'm all for Universal making more monster movies, so this is very good news to me.