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 this week, the folks at the Motion Picture Association ratings board have revealed that they’ve given the film 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.
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, a character described as being a mother whose family is being terrorized by a lethal predator. 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.”
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.
What do you think of Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man reboot getting an R rating? Let us know by leaving a comment below.