How the New Wolf Man Connects to The Invisible Man

Wolf Man comes from the same director as The Invisible Man, but don’t expect it to kick off a new Dark Universe. Both movies are modern takes on classics from the Universal Monsters library, but the movies aren’t connected in a franchise or a series. They are also both reboots of classics, drawing from the 1941 film The Wolf Man and the 1933 film The Invisible Man.

Wolf Man hits theaters on Friday, January 17th, while The Invisible Man is streaming now on Prime Video. Rewatching The Invisible Man won’t give you any real insight for the upcoming creature feature — except to refamiliarize you with the style of director Leigh Whannell. He wrote and directed The Invisible Man, and co-wrote and directed Wolf Man. These modern takes on classic monster movies are the new plan for Universal, rather than the heavily-mocked “Dark Universe” franchise that was plotted out in 2017.

The confusion comes from the 2014 announcement of the Dark Universe — a planned cinematic universe that would connect reboots and remakes of all the classic Universal monster movies in one grand franchise. You may recall that the studio played up these plans with Dracula Untold in 2014 and The Mummy in 2017, complete with a major photoshoot featuring stars Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Russell Crowe and Sofia Boutella. Other names attached to the franchise included Angelina Jolie, Dwayne Johnson, Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, but after the failure of The Mummy, none of these planned projects came to fruition.

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Ultimately, Universal announced that it was scrapping the cinematic universe plan in favor of standalone movies that could still be more modern and grounded than the classic titles in its library. The Invisible Man came next in 2020, followed by Renfield, The Last Voyage of the Demeter and Abigail. Wolf Man is next, and although Whannell’s earlier success helped him get this job, the two films aren’t connected. For some fans, that’s good news, though others will always wonder what the Dark Universe could have been.

Wolf Man is about a family of three relocating from San Francisco to Blake’s (Christopher Abbott) remote childhood home in Oregon following his father’s mysterious disappearance. His wife is played by Julia Garner while their daughter is played by Matilda Firth. The movie hits theaters on Friday, January 17th. The Invisible Man is streaming now on Prime Video.