Wolf Man Filmmaker Leigh Whannell Details Bringing Another Iconic Monster to Life

For the better part of a century, there has been no werewolf more iconic than Larry Talbot, the man who was transformed into a beast in 1941’s The Wolf Man. Understandably, any filmmaker who attempted to revive the character would be met with some apprehension, given how legendary the figure is in the horror community. For filmmaker Leigh Whannell, however, it’s just another adventure, as he already tackled a beloved figure when he delivered The Invisible Man in 2020, an experience that was lauded by both audiences and critics alike. Still, not all monsters are created equal, with Wolf Man creating a new set of challenges for Whannell. Wolf Man lands in theaters on January 17th.

When speaking to ComicBook about whether he factors in the character’s well-known legacy while developing the movie, Whannell detailed, “I do think about it. I think because, especially when you’re dealing with a character that is so classic and goes back such a long way, there’s been so many iterations of it. I think my first thought is always, ‘What am I going to bring that’s new to this? What’s the way in?’ I don’t think the best approach for me personally would be just total homage. I love the character, but I don’t necessarily want to build a shrine to that original text. I want to drag it into the modern world, recontextualize it, and also find a different way in it.”

He continued, “Sometimes the perspective can just be the thing. You don’t have to change the person’s whole story, but all of a sudden, by making it more internal and saying, ‘Oh, well, I want to see what the transformation looks like when you’re the person changing, how does it sound?’ That becomes interesting.”

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Wolf Man is described, “What if someone you loved became something else? From Blumhouse and visionary writer-director Leigh Whannell, the creators of the chilling modern monster tale The Invisible Man, comes a terrifying new lupine nightmare: Wolf Man. Golden Globe nominee Christopher Abbott (Poor Things, It Comes at Night) stars as Blake, a San Francisco husband and father, who inherits his remote childhood home in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead. With his marriage to his high-powered wife, Charlotte (Emmy winner Julia Garner; Ozark, Inventing Anna), fraying, Blake persuades Charlotte to take a break from the city and visit the property with their young daughter, Ginger (Matlida Firth; Hullraisers, Coma).

“But as the family approaches the farmhouse in the dead of night, they’re attacked by an unseen animal and, in a desperate escape, barricade themselves inside the home as the creature prowls the perimeter. As the night stretches on, however, Blake begins to behave strangely, transforming into something unrecognizable, and Charlotte will be forced to decide whether the terror within their house is more lethal than the danger without. The film co-stars Sam Jaeger (The Handmaid’s Tale), Ben Prendergast (The Sojourn Audio Drama), and Benedict Hardie (The Invisible Man).”

One major change from previous films is that, rather than exploring how a full moon causes a character to transform over extended periods of time, the events of the movie are contained to the first transformation. This means that audiences, and the characters themselves, are left with a number of mysterious questions about how such a situation could ever happen.

“I did have a bit of this mythology. You’ve got this isolated local community. I love it when a movie or a story that delves into the secrets of an isolated community, you feel like there’s something they’re hiding from you,” the filmmaker detailed of unseen elements of the story. “Movies have always illustrated that really well. So I figured this community has this virus, they know about it, but they know the rules of how to avoid it. Just move around during the day, it’s at night when it’s most active. They probably have maps of where it is the most. I felt like the citizens of this town or this community in the movie knew the rules, so I built it up, but I didn’t go too far because I wanted to keep that mystery about it.”

Wolf Man lands in theaters on January 17th.

Are you looking forward to the movie? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!