Everything to Know About Leigh Whanell’s Lupine Reimagining of a Universal Monster Classic

The full moon approaches, and with it, the wide theatrical release of director Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man. A contemporary reimagining of the Universal Monster classic, the film (written by Whannell and Corbett Tuck) will be unlike any werewolf flick you’ve seen before.

“My first answer was, ‘No. I just did The Invisible Man. I don’t want to follow that up with Wolf Man,’” Whannell, who found great success in his bold restyling of that other Universal Monster classic five years ago, admits in the production notes. “But then I thought of an angle that I could take it in. I had to walk around the block and find my way into it. In the past, the character of the werewolf has been wrapped around this big transformation, like the famous scene from An American Werewolf in London. That Wolf Man was superbly designed by Rick Baker and is the watermark for practical effects. It’s impossible to top what he did. So much so, that I thought that we should not try to improve upon that, but to take it in a completely different direction.”

Said direction was to move away from the sudden and shocking werewolf transformations of old in favor of a creeping, cellular degeneration that slowly robs a victim of their sense of self — à la Seth Brundle in David Cronenberg’s 1986 body horror update of The Fly. Head below for everything you need to know about the project.

For More on Leigh Whannell

Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man Is a Love Letter to All the 1980s Body Horror Movies You Love
Wolf Man Director Leigh Whannell Already Has Idea for a Third Universal Monster Movie — What is It?
How The 2020 Invisible Man Made Fighting Against an Unseen Enemy Look Real

What is Wolf Man about?

Marking a brand-new take on 1941’s The Wolf Man (now streaming on Peacock), this film centers around the Lovell family — Blake, Charlotte, and Ginger — who visit Blake’s childhood home in central Oregon after the sudden death of his father, Grady. What starts out as a benign trip to the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest soon devolves into a waking nightmare once Blake is attacked by an unknown creature. The Lovells barricade themselves inside the farmhouse for the night, but it’s already too late. A slow and horrific transformation has already begun to take place inside Blake, and once the process is over, the man’s humanity will be gone forever.

“Leigh and I talked a lot about illnesses from Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s,” Abbott explains. “In terms of the transformation, it was letting go of the reality of what it is to be a healthy human and stripping that away.”

Who stars in Wolf Man?

Christopher Abbott (Poor Things) leads Wolf Man as the titular lupine monster. Before his gruesome transformation takes place, he’s just a mild-mannered San Francisco family man named Blake Lovell. Julia Garner (Ozark) and Matilda Firth (Ozark) co-star as his wife, Charlotte, and daughter, Ginger, respectively. Sam Jaeger (The Handmaid’s Tale), meanwhile, takes on the role of Blake’s missing father, Grady Lovell.

Ben Prendergast (The Sojourn Audio Drama), Benedict Hardie (The Invisible Man), Beatriz Romilly (Shortland Street), Milo Cawthorne (Shortland Street), and newcomer Zac Chandler round out the ensemble, though their character specifics have yet to be revealed.

How can you watch Wolf Man?

Wolf Man will claw its way into theaters everywhere Friday, January 17. Tickets go on sale soon!

In addition to writing and directing, Whannell also serves as an executive producer on the movie alongside Beatriz Sequeira (The Invisible Man), Mel Turner (Sweet Tooth), and Ken Kao (Cuckoo). Academy Award nominee Ryan Gosling (Barbie), who was originally attached to play Abbott’s character, is a producer with Blumhouse founder and CEO Jason Blum.