Leigh Whannell’s upcoming horror film won’t be gracing our screens this year as Universal shifts Wolf Man to January 2025.
Wolf Man, Universal’s high profile horror endeavour, has gone through more changes than one can count. The film, at one point, was supposed to star Ryan Gosling and be directed by The Invisible Man director Leigh Whannell.
Well, the film is still being directed by Whannell, but he was at one point replaced by Derek Cianfrance, who is now busy working on Roofman, it seems.
Universal originally planned to release the film this October, as a Halloween treat presumably, but that plan has now gone out the window. Wolf Man will now release on 17th January, 2025.
Gosling was replaced by Christopher Abbott, who was last seen in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things and will also feature in this year’s Kraven The Hunter. Julia Garner is also attached to the film.
Blumhouse is producing the film together with Motel Movies and Whannell has penned the script. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Abbott will play a man whose family is stalked by a mysterious predator.
Whannell got his start as the star and writer of the original Saw film. Together with fellow Aussie James Wan, Whannell helped to kickstart a whole subgenre of horror, later to be known as torture porn. The 11th instalment of the franchise will premiere this September, with franchise veteran Kevin Greutert confirmed to direct.
Since his Saw days, Whannell has stuck to horror films, making his directorial debut with Insidious Chapter 3. His later directorial efforts, Upgrade and the aforementioned The Invisible Man, are excellent, so we suspect Wolf Man will also be one of 2025’s biggest horror films.
January is generally known as a bit of a dumping ground for studios. Studios often rush to release their most prized awards films before Christmas (in the US, that is) and audiences rarely have the funds to go to the cinema after buying presents for the entire extended family, leading to January films to slowly fade away in the background.
Hopefully, this will not be the case for Wolf Man. The talent attached makes this a very appealing project and it’s been a while since we had a proper creature feature in cinemas. Let’s hope Wolf Man starts the 2025 horror season with a bang.
More on the film as we hear it.
