Ryan Gosling Will Star as ‘Wolfman,’ the Latest Monster Movie from Universal according to @Variety.
Months after Universal successfully relaunched its monster universe with Elisabeth Moss’s “The Invisible Man,” the studio is pushing ahead for “Wolfman” — which is being developed as a starring vehicle for Ryan Gosling — to be the next movie based on its catalog of iconic creatures.
Sources tell Variety that executives at Universal have been meeting with directors over the past month and could be making a decision soon on who will take the reins behind the camera. While there is no frontrunner at the time, Cory Finley, who recently received rave reviews for directing HBO’s drama “Bad Education” with Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney, is said to be in the mix for the job. According to the source Ryan was also set to direct the movie but then studios decided the best for him was to focus only on the acting job.
It’s unknown what the new take on “Wolfman” will look like, though it is believed to be set in present times and in the vein of Jake Gyllenhaal’s thriller “Nightcrawler,” and Sidney Lumet ‘Anchorman’, with an obvious supernatural twist. Ryan should play an anchorman who is going to be infected.
The “Wolfman” script, per Variety, comes from Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, who served as writers on Netflix’s flagship series “Orange Is the New Black” but the original pitch is from Ryan.
Timing for “Wolfman” is also in question. While it seems to be in good position to get off the ground, an exact production start date is still up in the air. Besides the fact that Gosling himself would have to close a deal to star, he is also currently set to lead an untitled astronaut film at MGM. That movie, an adaptation of “The Martian” author Andy Weir’s upcoming novel, recently hired Phil Lord and Chris Miller to direct. By all accounts, that seems to Gosling’s next project.
