A follow-up to Leigh Whannell’s excellent 2020 take on The Invisible Man is happening, and talk of a Dark Universe revival is also underway…
Back in 2020 – just before the world ground to a halt because of the global pandemic – Universal released The Invisible Man, a gripping psychological thriller featuring Elisabeth Moss and directed by Leigh Whannell.
The film was a critical and commercial success, earning over $150m from a reported budget of just $7m (a return that would have been much higher had cinemas not locked down at the time).
In the wake of the film’s positive reception, Whannell was given a crack at The Wolfman, another Universal monster. He then lost that gig to Derek Cianfrance when Ryan Gosling came on board, but when Gosling later departed the project, so too did Cianfrance.
That meant the job went back to Whannell and the film is question is now titled Wolf Man. Shooting on that one began in March and is still happening as far as we know. Marvel’s new Silver Surfer Julia Garner and Christopher Abbott (who recently popped up in Poor Things) are set to lead the cast for that one.
On the HappySadConfused podcast, Elisabeth Moss recently appeared and confirmed that she and Whannell are planning a sequel to The Invisible Man. As she puts it, “we are closer than we’ve ever been to cracking it, and I feel very good about it, and we are very much intent on continuing that story.”
We’re not sure we need this film given how their first collaboration was such an original and modern take on the subject matter, a retreading of those themes and ideas doesn’t seem as appetising as seeing Whannell do something else that’s more original. After all, this s the director of 2018’s Upgrade we are talking about. He does spiky, original thrillers very, very well and this is why we’re looking forward to Wolf Man. Do we need to see him do The Invisible Man all over again though?
Moss also drops the news that Universal are looking to make more monster films and perhaps even trying to find a way to tie these monster films into a shared universe, worrying news if ever we heard it.
Responding to a question which directly asked whether a crossover between Wolf Man and The Invisible Man was the plan, she said: “I think that’s the idea of Universal in the future, if Wolf Man goes well and all of that, is to kind of revive that universe. But, no, unfortunately, I have not been asked to be in Wolf Man.“
Of course, there’s every chance that Moss may have been misinformed here or that wires have been crossed. Following the high profile failure of Universal’s last attempt to pull its monster characters together into a shared cinematic universe, we’d have thought the studio would veer well clear of this idea, not least because The Invisible Man proved that audiences want to see standalone, well-made films.
What do you think? Should a monster crossover be the aim of the studio? Let us know your comments below. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
