'Wolf Man' is gnarlier than you might think: 'This one is pretty hardcore' (exclusive) (2024)

Word around the Hollywood studio lot of Universal Pictures is that Wolf Man, a reimagining of the classic movie monster from director Leigh Whannell (The Invisible Man, Insidious: Chapter 3), is gnarlier than most people might be expecting. Now...as Whannell points out on a brief break from editing the feature, everyone has a different definition of what it means to churn the stomach.

"One person thinks that this guy vomiting in a movie is the most stomach-churning thing they've ever seen," Whannell tells Entertainment Weekly from the edit room, which he jokes looks just like every other edit room — "super boring" with white walls and minimal decor. "And then this gore-hound over here thinks Terrifier 3 isn't gorey enough," he adds of the current No. 1 movie in America.

Whannell isn't quite sure where on that scale Wolf Man falls, but his mission from the jump — which began, once upon a time, years ago when the lead actor was Barbie's "just Ken" Ryan Gosling — was to craft a genuine R-rated monster movie. "These classic monsters like Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein have become so ubiquitous," the filmmaker explains. "They're a little bit safe now. My kids watch animated movies with those monsters running around and being voiced by Adam Sandler. So part of my thing with this movie was taking it out of that safe territory and putting it back in this truly horrific territory."

"Wolf Man is a straight-up horror movie," Jason Blum, head of horror hit-making production company Blumhouse, says. "It's a scary horror movie. I think most of the Wolf Man movies that came before this have been softer. I don't mean that pejoratively. I just mean that this one is pretty hardcore."

Whannell and Blum plan to be in Manhattan's Javitz Center, the home base of New York Comic-Con, for the big Blumfest panel. Emceed by Emmy-nominated comedienne Nicole Byer and a different master of modern horror, TV showrunner and film director Mike Flanagan (The Fall of the House of Usher, Doctor Sleep), the festivities will include sneak peeks at upcoming Blumhouse films. That includes M3GAN 2.0, the Meghann Fahy-led Drop from Happy Death Day's Christopher Landon, the Danielle Deadwyler-starring The Woman in the Yard from Jungle Cruise's Jaume Collet-Serra, and the first Blumhouse video game Fear the Spotlight.

Wolf Man will be a centerpiece of the event, where the company plans to release the full-length trailer. Ahead of the big kickoff this Friday, the director and executive producer preview what's to come with Wolf Man.

Christopher Abbott (Sanctuary, It Comes at Night) stars as Blake, a San Franciscan who, together with his high-powered wife Charlotte (Ozark Emmy winner Julia Garner), raises a young daughter, Ginger (Coma's Matilda Firth). Ethan inherits his childhood farmhouse in the remote woods of rural Oregon after his father mysteriously vanishes. With his dad (and fraying marriage) presumed dead, Blake convinces Ginger to take a break from the city and visit the house, but some unseen animal attacks the family, forcing them to barricade themselves inside the home. As the creature prowls the perimeter outside, Blake begins to transform into something unrecognizable, putting Charlotte and Ginger at risk.

In the same way Whannell told the story of 2020's The Invisible Man through the lens of domestic violence and gaslighting, the filmmaker hopes he found a new modern lens to approach this next horror venture, which also costars Sam Jaeger (The Handmaid's Tale), Ben Prendergast (The Sojourn Audio Drama), and Benedict Hardie (The Invisible Man).

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"I really wanted it to be about disease, this idea that the human body is so fragile and we really don't get that much time with our loved ones," he says. "The first draft was written during the pandemic in 2020. The world was upside down. Everybody's in their houses. Everybody's afraid of this bug that's going around. People are dying. Whilst I wouldn't say this is a COVID movie, I would say the environment of that year really seeped into this script. It's about how tragic it is when disease comes into your life. I think the story of the Wolf Man fits well with a story of degenerative disease."

Blum doesn't want to give too much away, but he remembers "one really super cool, striking, original idea" from Whannell's early pitch for the movie that stuck with him. "I remember him either pitching it or reading it," he says. "I don't remember what first, but I remember thinking that's going to make this movie different than any other Wolf Man movie before it and cooler and better and feel visceral today."

When horror lovers think of the classic story of the Wolf Man, body horror comes to mind. That's Whannell's favorite branch of the genre. Mike Marino, the makeup whiz who turned Colin Farrell into Oz Cobb for The Batman and The Penguin, as well as Sebastian Stan into the lead of A Different Man, previously molded an early look for the Wolf Man transformation design back when Gosling was once on board for the lead role. (Gosling bowed out over scheduling but remains an executive producer on Wolf Man.) Whannell since went with Oscar nominee Arjen Tuiten (Wonder) to help produce the practical transformation of Abbott into the feral creature.

"I love Kronenberg. His version of The Fly is not just one of my favorite horror movies, but just favorite movies," Whannell remarks. "I very much had that in mind [for Wolf Man], that aspect of it and the makeup tradition from Rick Baker going back to Lon Chaney makeup and practical effects. That's what people know about the Wolf Man."

Wolf Man will launch in the new year as the first Blumhouse film of 2025, which marks the 15th anniversary of the company's long line of horror titles, starting with the first Insidious movie, which Whannell wrote. Fans will learn more about Wolf Man and that 2025 lineup at the Blumfest panel at New York Comic Con tomorrow, Oct. 18, at 2:30 pm ET out of the Empire Room at the Javitz Center.