Can Ryan Gosling break the Wolfman curse?
After four decades of studio howlers, is a new moon rising for the horror icon?
WHEN THE SUN set on Universal’s Dark Universe, the moon also faded on a mega-budget adaptation of the Wolfman starring Dwayne Johnson. Intriguing as The Rock in a full-body wig sounds, you can’t help but feel he dodged a silver bullet, given Hollywood’s recent werewolf history.
It’s been 39 years since An American Werewolf In London, the last pedigree studio horror. Ever since, The Curse Of The Were-movie has dogged Hollywood at every step. Mike Nichols’ Wolf was plagued by reshoots and a revolving cast; Wes Craven’s Cursed saw the Weinsteins nix FX guru Rick Baker’s work in favour of Playstation2 CGI; and The Wolfman, Universal’s last remake, ballooned into a $150 million gothic theme park that forgot to build a ride.
There’s a lesson to be learned here: all the truly great werewolf movies this century, whether Ginger Snaps, Dog Soldiers or Late Phases, have been Poundshop indies that took risks and stamped their own twist on the were-myth. With The Invisible Man making box-office gold from a $7 millon budget, Universal turning to Ryan Gosling for a leaner standalone Wolfman has serious Joker potential: take an icon, drop the baggage of mythology and do something leftfield. And Gosling was born leftfield.
The casting is inspired. Gosling’s yet to star in a full-blown horror, which is odd given he’s a closet goth with a lifelong Universal Monsters obsession that last surfaced in musical form on his 2009 Dead Man’s Bones album. On it: a track called ‘Werewolf Heart’ that sounds like a Wolfman audition tape (sample uplifting lyrics: “You’d look nice in a grave.../death is on my face”).
Based on a pitch from Gosling himself and scripted by Orange Is The New Black writers Rebecca Angelo and Lauren Schuker Blum, there are tantalising hints of something genuinely subversive, with Gosling rumoured to be playing a lycanthropic anchorman howling, not at the moon, but the media. Imagine Network with fangs. Or Nightcrawler with fleas. Either way, redirecting the rage towards satire rather than spectacle suggests Gosling’s Wolfman could do for Fox News what 1970s cult classic The Werewolf Of Washington did for Watergate. It’s been a long time coming, but we could finally see a werewolf studio movie with genuine bite.