Connect with us

Movies

Mark Romanek Reveals What Actually Happened With His ‘Wolfman’!

Published

on

In the ten years of Bloody Disgusting, one of the most disappointing pieces of news was learning that Mark Romanek had exited The Wolfman remake after nearly a year in pre-production. While everyone involved was tight-lipped, we had heard that Romanek wasn’t comfortable with the large budget, which turns out to be half true. AICN caught up with the director who breaks the silence about his departure, while keeping diplomatic about the situation. This is a pretty damn good read.
From Aint it Cool News:

Mark Romanek: It was a producer driven project. It was not a director driven project. I tried to make it be a director driven project or have it be a director driven project, but it was never going to be that. I should say an actor-director driven project. Benicio and I wanted to do a certain kind of film and when we ran that up the flagpole nobody saluted. So, it was best to bow out because they knew what they wanted and it was better for them to have a filmmaker that was going to be more collaborative, I guess, toward that end. I saw it in the film. Some of the design remained and some of the locations I picked, but that’s about it, though.

Quint: Yeah?

Mark Romanek: Some of the cast. Some of it they recast when I left. Some of them they kept.

Quint: I’m thinking specifically in your vision you wanted a lot more practical stuff, that’s why you brought on Rick Baker, right?

Mark Romanek: Well, I wanted it to be simpler, more practical and more character-driven, more emotional, more archetypal and mythic and what they really wanted… And by the way, I want to make it really clear actually and this is a good place to do it, because I don’t talk about it that much, I don’t have any bitterness attached to it.

I was actually supported fairly well, there were just a lot of problems about… There was the strike, for starters, which got it off on a really bad foot and then the film was dramatically under-budgeted.

People say “Oh, he couldn’t figure how to make a movie for a hundred million dollars,” well you know what? If you are 30 or 40 or 45 million dollars shy of what you need that’s on the page and there’s a strike and you can’t change anything (in the script), what the fuck do you do? That’s a problem. It’s very easy for people that actually don’t make films to say “Oh, he couldn’t figure it out for a hundred million dollars.”

You know, when we are three weeks away from shooting, we can’t change the script, and it’s clear that we are 30 or 40 million dollars light, what do you do? On top of that, no one could agree on what the tone of the film should be and no one wanted to unanimously support Benny and my’s version of it and Tony Hopkins’ (version), too.

And so it seemed better to let them find a filmmaker that was more suited to their goals. And they are good guys, they are nice guys. I don’t think they are like evil bad guys, they just wanted to make a certain kind of film. That’s what they believed in and that’s really true. I would work with any of those guys again, it just didn’t work out. Sometimes you just can’t get on the same page, which is fine. I have no regrets about it. It was a very traumatic decision to leave that film because I worked on it for almost a year, but I don’t regret leaving because it was the right decision, but it was a hard decision.

Horror movie fanatic who co-founded Bloody Disgusting in 2001. Producer on Southbound, V/H/S/2/3/94, SiREN, Under the Bed, and A Horrible Way to Die. Chicago-based. Horror, pizza and basketball connoisseur. Taco Bell daily. Franchise favs: Hellraiser, Child's Play, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Scream and Friday the 13th. Horror 365 days a year.

Advertisement
Click to comment

Movies

‘The Watchers’ Has a New Release Date and It’s the Same as the Original Release Date

Published

on

In the wake of this week’s brand new trailer, Ishana Night Shyamalan’s upcoming horror movie The Watchers once again has a new release date. And as the headline of this article suggests, New Line Cinema has moved it back to its original release date. Say what?!

The Watchers had originally been set for theatrical release on June 7 before being recently bumped to June 14. But we’ve learned tonight that it’s been moved back into the June 7 slot.

That’s Hollywood for ya. In any event, watch this week’s new trailer below.

[Related] AreYouWatching.com: ‘The Watchers’ Interactive Website Is Full of Easter Eggs

The film follows Mina, a 28-year-old artist, who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night.

The Watchers stars Dakota Fanning (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Georgina Campbell (Barbarian), Oliver Finnegan (“Creeped Out”) and Olwen Fouere (The Northman).

The upcoming mystery-horror film is produced by M. Night Shyamalan, Ashwin Rajan and Nimitt Mankad. The executive producers are Jo Homewood and Stephen Dembitzer.

Joining writer/director Shyamalan behind-the-camera are director of photography Eli Arenson (“Lamb,” “Hospitality”), production designer Ferdia Murphy (“Lola,” “Finding You”), editor Job ter Burg (“Benedetta,” “Elle”) and costume design by Frank Gallacher (“Sebastian,” “Aftersun”). The music is by Abel Korzeniowski (“Till,” “The Nun”).

The Watchers is based on the novel by A.M. Shine.

Continue Reading