“These classic monsters are durable, you can make them contemporary,” said Leigh Whannell at New York Comic Con on Friday about Wolf Man, his second go-round in Universal’s stash of scary guys following the pre-Covid Invisible Man.
Wolf Man‘s official trailer was dropped today following its teaser a month ago. The movie opens on January 17 via Universal.
In the new clip, God, talk about the horror: Being turned sideways in the forest in a U-Haul truck.
Similar to Whannel’s Invisible Man there’s a greater societal commentary going on here with Wolf Man, about the evil that bad husbands do. Also, the quiet countryside during the night ain’t so peaceful.
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Whannel said that star Christopher Abbot wasn’t method. “He turns it on and off,” he said. “I was trying to get him to take it more seriously.”
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Whannell had other ways to have the cast bond; he coincidentally found a wolf man-themed escape room. Talking about that takeaway with his actors, he said, “Nothing brings out someone’s true personality like an escape room!”
He also had “the full moon film club” during production, having his crew watch older genre pics like The Thing, The Fly, An American Werewolf in London, etc. “It was the bonding with people and getting them excited about theatrical movies,” he said.
Jason Blum of Blumhouse touted the double the amount of movies for his genre label thanks to its merger with James Wan’s Atomic Monster.
Blumhouse has in the pipeline Wolf Man, Woman in the Yard, Black Phone II and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, while Atomic Monster counts Monkey, Mortal Combat 2, The Conjuring 4 and the Apple TV+ series The Bondsman with Kevin Bacon. Altogether 10 projects are coming next year, Blum says.