On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 105/123 |
David Mumpower |
I just don't understand how a group of smart and accomplished people can so completely mess up a classic like this. |
| 186/190 |
Max Braden |
Maybe a touch less boring than De Niro's Frankenstein. |
In 1999, Universal Pictures dusted off one of the premises upon which their studio was based. The Mummy franchise was rebooted as less of a horror film and more of a pure action title in the image of Indiana Jones. Two movies and a semi-sequel about a Scorpion King later, Universal had attained over a billion dollars of revenue worldwide from ticket sales alone. This is what studio bean counters describe as a positive outcome. In the summer of 2008, a third Mummy title will be released, but Universal does not plan to stand pat with that franchise as their only tie back to the halcyon days of early Hollywood.
Enter The Wolfman.
Finally, the moment BOP has waited for over since our inception has come to fruition. Lycanthropes are back in, baby! Let the moonlight fur growth begin! Academy Award winning actor Benicio Del Toro takes on the role made famous by Lon Chaney Jr. as he portrays an actor (however will he perform such a transformation?) who finds himself heading home to England in order to discover the whereabouts of his missing brother. While there, he gets bitten by a werewolf (natch). From that point on, he develops an uncontrollable urge to savage humans, sharpen his nails, and roll around in his own filth. Some projects are harder to describe than others. When people hear the phrase “Wolfman”, however, the mind naturally goes to a place that accurately describes the premise. This makes my job much easier.
One Hour Photo director Mark Romanek will helm the project using a script from Se7en author Andrew Kevin Walker. Sir Anthony Hopkins has been cast to play the role of Sir John Talbot (again, how can he channel playing a British knight?), the father of Del Toro’s character, Lawrence. The Wolf Man will be set in the Victorian era, making it slightly different from recent werewolf productions such as Blood and Chocolate, Cursed, and An American Werewolf in Paris. Of course, it had better be significantly different. Those three titles have combined box office of $49.3 million. The Wolf Man is expecting to make that in its first week, maybe first weekend. (David Mumpower/BOP)
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