UPDATE: Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood has a quote from a reported insider saying, “He just blew the opportunity of a lifetime, which is mind-boggling.” Finke reports the film was budgeted at $100 million, but Romanek felt he couldn’t make the film with that kind of money. Finke’s insider says, “He’s a purist, an artiste, an exquisite craftsman, but he just had a budget schedule he couldn’t accomodate.”
Damn, that’s a lot of dough to be pushing aside. I wonder what the budget on the original 1941 version was.
It seems One Hour Photo helmer Mark Romanek will not be directing his first feature film since the 2002 thriller as he has dropped out of directing Universal’s remake The Wolf Man for reported “creative differences”. As always the studio says Romanek left “in strong shape” and word is they are expected to fill the helming duties quickly, but there is no word on whether or not production will still begin on February 18th, but you have to assume it won’t.
Benicio Del Toro has long been set to star in the title role and Emily Blunt and Anthony Hopkins were added to the cast only recently.
The film is based on the classic 1941 monster movie and was set to feature Del Toro as a man who returns from America to his ancestral homeland, gets bitten by a werewolf and begins a hairy moonlight existence. Screenwriter, Andrew Kevin Walker, spent several months working on some frightening new twists to a familiar tale, adding several characters and plot points that take advantage of cutting-edge visual effects technology.
A February 13, 2009 had been set, there is no word on whether or not they would stick to that date.
After State of Play, this is the second Universal picture to suffer since the start of the writers’ strike back in November.
