On June 9th Universal’s Dark Universe launches with The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise as the universe’s “Van Helsing” character and Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll (and Mr. Hyde). Next up will be the Bill Condon-directed Bride of Frankenstein, to be released on February 14, 2019. The Invisible Man and Frankenstein’s Monster will be played by, respectively, blockbuster icon Johnny Depp and Academy Award winner Javier Bardem. That’s a pretty solid list, especially with rumors swirling for years that Universal is targeting Angelina Jolie as the Bride and Scarlett Johansson for The Creature From the Black Lagoon.
One other film in the works is The Wolf Man. While no director has been attached yet, Dave Callaham has been at work on the script for a new film based on the 1941 Universal movie for almost a year now. With no mention of the film or character in the Dark Universe announcement, it appears this is more of a Phase 2 title than one in the initial canon.
Hidden within an article on THR, they reveal that Universal is not only still developing Wolf Man, but they’ve set their sights on superstar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for a role. He starred in 2002’s Mummy spinoff The Scorpion King, which makes this an ironic casting choice. Obviously, Uni has been working on this mega-star universe for years now and it’s looking like they’re landing all the big fish. You don’t get much better than Johnson, who is also starring in New Line Cinema’s Rampage.
In regards to Wolf Man, Callaham penned all four Expendables films, the story for Godzilla, and the pilot for Amazon’s hilarious “Jean-Claude Van Johnson”. I think it’s safe to say that tonally they’re going for fun, and have picked an intriguing writer to tackle the hairy reboot.
Prisoners scribe Aaron Guzikowski wrote the first draft of The Wolf Man, which is being produced by Kurtzman and Morgan. The Wolf Man was a 1941 Universal film directed by George Waggner that starred Lon Chaney Jr. as a man who returns to his homeland where he is attacked and becomes a werewolf. Joe Johnston remade the film in 2010 with Benicio del Toro as the title character.
