Wolfman-The Offical Thread

[CrimsonMist]

I hope they learned from their mistakes from this and don't need to piss away $200M. Hopefully the $50M is enough to make a Creature costume. I'd be disappointed if it was fully CGI.

I'd give CFTBL around 80 or 90 million. Regardless of your thoughts on Hellboy 2, the budget for that film was 85 million and it certainly didn't look it. The creature designs and what not were incredible. Put some of that money into making a *****in' looking Creature design, make it a puppet, a guy in a costume...maybe do motion capture for the swimming sequences.

Doc Jones and I threw around some ideas for a Creature remake in the "Movies You'd Like To See Get Made" thread and there's certainly potential there. Especially in setting it in the Victorian period. Not sure if i would incorporate any "Beauty & The Beast" aspects in there, but I'd most certainly play up the sexual tension.

Me, too. I've not seen Coppola's but I can't stand the design of Dracula they used. IMO, there are only 2 acceptable designs of Dracula: Bela Lugosi's and Nosferatu. Anything else is Dracula in name only.

I also hope they avoid the temptation many other Dracula/vampire films give into and make Dracula's mouth all bloody when he's sucking the blood out of a victim. He's not supposed to eat their neck, just puncture it.

Even Lugosi's is off. To do the book right, you need to be rid of the image of Dracula as a suave devil in disguise. Dracula in the novel is NEVER attractive and where he grows younger, he NEVER BECOMES attractive. Stoker's Dracula has all the appeal of a rapist. He is a truly EVIL villain. He isn't a gothic, romantic, or tragic hero. He's pure evil. He takes what he wants when he wants it, sometimes just because he can and other times to teach a lesson to those who might seek to destroy him. He's a brutal warlord, a strategist (though one could argue against that by questioning how Dracula inadvertently gets involved with the group of people that are friends with Jonathan Harker, the man he has locked up in his castle, though that's mostly attributed to the literary period, where coincidence is stretched.) He also has hairy palms, rancid breath and a white, droopy mustache. He wears all black as well.

He should NEVER look like Nosferatu. Being a german expressionist film, the disease-ridden rodent features of Murnau's Count Orlock are merely physical representations of the aura of the character. Stoker's Dracula is a plague carrier, but to make him look like that is all wrong. Stoker's Dracula's intent is to blend in as much as authentically possible in England so as to create more vampires from the inside, without ever being caught.

and vampires go after the jugular vein. I'm pretty sure that once that vein is ruptured, it bleeds like crazy.

 

[TheComicbookKid]

Doc Jones and I threw around some ideas for a Creature remake in the "Movies You'd Like To See Get Made" thread and there's certainly potential there. Especially in setting it in the Victorian period. Not sure if i would incorporate any "Beauty & The Beast" aspects in there, but I'd most certainly play up the sexual tension.

That would be awesome! Though I'm afraid Wolfman has lessened any chances of seeing a non-modern take on the rest of the monsters. Or at least not a non-American version. 1940s Mummy style.

 

[Silver Knight]

It's expected to make 9 million in the second weekend.

How much did it make the first weekend?

 

[rashad]

@Silver Knight it made $31,479,235 opening weekend.

BOM Weekend Numbers
$9,846,000

Domestic: $50,315,000
+ Foreign: $46,700,000
= Worldwide: $97,015,000

 

[DACrowe]

Now Nikki Finke is saying The Wolfman cost Universal around $200M to make (with tax rebates lowering it down to $175M) and that the second weekend gross plummeted 70%:



Methinks Universal should've budgeted this movie more wisely. I have a hard time believing the reshoots cost another $85M or more, or they should've picked better/cheaper CGI houses to do the transformation work.

I saw this earlier today. Albeit to be fair in Wolfman's case it's budget was $150 million and its rebate brought it down to $125 million (as Nikki knows as she printed it last week, but she has a hard on for attacking incompetent execs, hence rounding 68 percent up to 70 percent or making non-news stories about the Olympics news to diss Jeff Zucker).....


moving on. Well there you have it. Unless it can cost about $70 million, there will be no sequel to The Wolfman. And I doubt Universal would want to do one even then after the headache this was for them.

But it really is their fault. For whatever reason the movie was not ready to film and their director left. They brought in a last minute replacement and gave him 3 weeks to prep an entire $100 million film. And lo and behold it needs reshoots, unexpected CGI add-ons in post and probably unneeded multiple re-edits and musical scores. Going in half-assed costs more money and bites them in the ass.

If they can keep these movies under $90 million, they could have a successful niche subgenre of horror movies, as there obviously is a market. If these could come out around Halloween, they (The Wolfman included) could make (or have made) over $40 million opening weekend and done very well. The Wolfman despite toxic buzz made $35 million opening weekend on Valentine's Day against a movie called Valentine's Day. If it was released in late October/early November, it probably would have made more. And the major drop is because of the film's word of mouth. I enjoyed it, but the shotty editing and writing turned a lot of people off.

So I hope this doesn't:

a) Cost us an extended cut on DVD.

and

b) Cost us future gothic horror reimaginings. Bram Stoker's Dracula, Interview with the Vampire, Sleepy Hollow and Sweeney Todd were all hits. The Wolfman had a solid opening. Don't disown the subgenre because your mistakes made the first effort a dud.

 

[SuperFerret]

Just got back from seeing the first 30 minutes, but apparently it's not a full moon out, so the projector died. I did get my free admission coupon turned into two though. One for the refund, the other for the trouble. Not sure yet what I'll use the second one for, but I will be going back to see Wolfman again.

 

[DACrowe]

Me, too. I've not seen Coppola's but I can't stand the design of Dracula they used. IMO, there are only 2 acceptable designs of Dracula: Bela Lugosi's and Nosferatu. Anything else is Dracula in name only.

Do yourself a favor and see this movie. The original Dracula in Stoker's novel is not like Lugosi or Orlock either (though they're closer in some ways than Oldman and further in others). If you haven't read the book, there is no reason why you should not enjoy Dracula. Despite some uneven spots and a few poor supporting performances (Keanu Reeves is in it) the film is superb. It has a tour de force from Gary Oldman as Dracula, a great overall supporting cast including Winona Ryder (actually pretty good), Sadie Frost, Cary Elwes, Richard E. Grant, Tom Waits as Renfield and a deliciously hammy Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing.

But beyond that it is bloody brilliant (pardon the pun) visually. It won Oscars for make-up and costumes and it is deserved. Visually it is like an erotic Victorian nightmare brought to life with ridiculously surrealist charm. Coppola's last effort that felt so lively and fun. And all the SFX is done with techniques from silent films at the beginning of the 20th century. I believer there is only one CGI shot in the whole movie. And lastly, it has one of the best musical scores. Ever. Period.

Is it a mess? Yes. Is it true to the book? Not at all. Is it the most fun you'll have with Dracula since Lugosi or at least Christopher Lee hung up the cape? Easily.

 

[DACrowe]

double returns.

 

[Spidey-Bat]

Doc Jones and I threw around some ideas for a Creature remake in the "Movies You'd Like To See Get Made" thread and there's certainly potential there. Especially in setting it in the Victorian period. Not sure if i would incorporate any "Beauty & The Beast" aspects in there, but I'd most certainly play up the sexual tension.

I'll check it out

and vampires go after the jugular vein. I'm pretty sure that once that vein is ruptured, it bleeds like crazy.

I'm sure it is a geyser once it's punctured but they don't always have to bite the jugular vein, there are other parts of the neck they can bite. Having a vampire with blood on their mouths is just an unnecessary gore.

Well there you have it. Unless it can cost about $70 million, there will be no sequel to The Wolfman. And I doubt Universal would want to do one even then after the headache this was for them.

Honestly, I don't want a sequel. I don't think The Wolfman story really lends itself to one. What would one be about anyway? [blackout]I'd prefer to think Abeline commits suicide shortly after this film since he doesn't want to become a beast and continue the cycle.[/blackout] Maybe a more modern telling of The Wolfman. I wouldn't mind since, for some reason, I'm interested in seeing a werewolf in a hoodie

So I hope this doesn't:

a) Cost us an extended cut on DVD.

I think we'll get it since the editing problems are rather well known. What I think they'll do is release the theatrical cut, say, June/July. Then release the extended cut in October around Halloween. You'll get people who will double-dip and capitalize on the season which was their greatest failure with the film.

Spoiler tagging the quotes so it's not a huge, long post.

Spoiler

Do yourself a favor and see this movie. The original Dracula in Stoker's novel is not like Lugosi or Orlock either (though they're closer in some ways than Oldman and further in others). If you haven't read the book, there is no reason why you should not enjoy Dracula. Despite some uneven spots and a few poor supporting performances (Keanu Reeves is in it) the film is superb. It has a tour de force from Gary Oldman as Dracula, a great overall supporting cast including Winona Ryder (actually pretty good), Sadie Frost, Cary Elwes, Richard E. Grant, Tom Waits as Renfield and a deliciously hammy Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing.

But beyond that it is bloody brilliant (pardon the pun) visually. It won Oscars for make-up and costumes and it is deserved. Visually it is like an erotic Victorian nightmare brought to life with ridiculously surrealist charm. Coppola's last effort that felt so lively and fun. And all the SFX is done with techniques from silent films at the beginning of the 20th century. I believer there is only one CGI shot in the whole movie. And lastly, it has one of the best musical scores. Ever. Period.

Is it a mess? Yes. Is it true to the book? Not at all. Is it the most fun you'll have with Dracula since Lugosi or at least Christopher Lee hung up the cape? Easily.

Even Lugosi's is off. To do the book right, you need to be rid of the image of Dracula as a suave devil in disguise. Dracula in the novel is NEVER attractive and where he grows younger, he NEVER BECOMES attractive. Stoker's Dracula has all the appeal of a rapist. He is a truly EVIL villain. He isn't a gothic, romantic, or tragic hero. He's pure evil. He takes what he wants when he wants it, sometimes just because he can and other times to teach a lesson to those who might seek to destroy him. He's a brutal warlord, a strategist (though one could argue against that by questioning how Dracula inadvertently gets involved with the group of people that are friends with Jonathan Harker, the man he has locked up in his castle, though that's mostly attributed to the literary period, where coincidence is stretched.) He also has hairy palms, rancid breath and a white, droopy mustache. He wears all black as well.

He should NEVER look like Nosferatu. Being a german expressionist film, the disease-ridden rodent features of Murnau's Count Orlock are merely physical representations of the aura of the character. Stoker's Dracula is a plague carrier, but to make him look like that is all wrong. Stoker's Dracula's intent is to blend in as much as authentically possible in England so as to create more vampires from the inside, without ever being caught.

I'll check out Coppola's Dracula. I didn't phrase what I said in regards to Lugosi and Nosferatu well. When I think of Dracula, those are the two designs (by designs I mean appearance, not the character itself) I immediately think of. Even though it's not similar to Stoker's, those movies have reshaped Dracula. Much like The Wolfman in 1941 changed werewolf lore (IIRC, it was the first to represent a werewolf as a humanoid wolf). My main gripe with the Coppola Dracula is the hair, it just looks silly. Though it didn't help that the first time I was exposed to this design was when The Simpsons parodied it on a Treehouse of Horrors special.

 

[Nivek]

Why do I not believe this film cost $200 million to make? Did they actually build that mansion and burn it to the ground, because otherwise, I didn't see that much money on screen.

 

[Bad Superman]

Dean Koontz Frankenstein seems like a bad idea. They alread did a crappy TV movie version in like 2004. If they're going to remake Frankensteing, they need to do in a similar style to The Wolfman

I agree. I hope Universal has long term plans for all the monster classic franchises. I think the trick would be signing the main characters for at least a trilogy.

I haven't heard much about Dracula but what i've heard about frankenstein isn't too exciting.




Frankenstein will be based off some Koontz novels and they would use "synthetic biology" , also make it modern day

A Creature from the Black Lagoon remake is in the works but not sure if it will be modern or not , which should be cool .

There's a movie about Vlad the impaler in the works but it won't have nothing to do with Dracula

then the Mummy franchise is going to get another sequel. I dont actually mind those movies but I want a real Mummy movie already.

The Mummy does need a reboot and be made into a real horror film. While I enjoyed the Sommers films, it focused more on comedy and making O' Conner the "new Indiana Jones". They should focus more on the horror story and leave the comedy out.

With Sam Worthington cast as Dracula, you can bet that his Dracula won't be eating dinner outside his castle surrounded by hundreds of impaled bodies. In all likelihood, the Dracula of "Dracula: Year Zero" is going to be a real wuss compared the historical Vlad Tepes and the fictionalized Vlad Tepes of Stoker's novel(a ruthless warlord who becomes a master of black arts and is able to bring himself back to life as a vampire, and mind you a vicious evil one who kills women and children because HE CAN, not because Winona Ryder left him for Keanu Reeves and he's distraught.)

I still don't buy Worthington as Dracula.

http://www.latinoreview.com/news/open-letter-to-universal-your-wolfman-ripped-off-twilight-9247

Taylor Lautner Fan Letter To Universal: Your Wolfman Ripped Off Twilight
By George 'El Guapo' Roush on February 18, 2010


I don't print reader's letters to me because most of them contain words and insults that are unfit to print. However, once in a while a golden ticket will come into my inbox that is not only worth reading, it's worth sharing with the world.

The e-mail was from Kayla Patterson, a die hard Twilight/Taylor Lautner fan upset about Universal Pictures ripping off the werewolf idea from Twilight. That's right, Universal Studios, who first put werewolves in theaters, are a bunch of copycats.

Here is the e-mail, unedited and untouched (including pictures), which clearly puts Universal Pictures in their place.

To whom this may concern:

This movie was a complete waste and I feel that it offends ALL Twilight Fans around the world, that including myself. For one, it was a COMPLETE remaking of the Wolf Pack from the Twilight Saga: New Moon. It gives the werewolves a bad name and makes them look like some deformed mutation of a rabid dog. I actually started to like werewolves after seeing Jacob Black and all his awesomeness on the big screen at the movies. That was until I saw your crappy remake of what you call to be a "were wolf". I don't see how you live with yourself for making it the way you did. If I made this movie, I would be ashamed to even admit that I owned it. How can a werewolf be killed with a silver bullet? Better yet, have you saw the transformation of the man that is "supposed" to be the wolf? He sits in some chair and his entire body turns in to some mutated freak. If you would watch the transformation of Jacob Black, (Taylor Lautner) he doesn't come close to looking as fake, cheap and or mutated as the wolf man. You tell me, who looks to be the better werewolf. Your stupid Wolf Movie didn't even make the top Movie for the charts; Valentines Day WITH TAYLOR Lautner! Get that this is MY oppinion and I felt I wanted to express it because I saw that your email was on your site. I wanted to let you know this is what i thought of the wolf man that sucks.
FREAKIN LAUTNER DID!

The Poser of who could never be even if they tried : " Aka : Rabid poser Werewolf "The Wolf Man"

OR My favorite: Taylor Daniel Lautner aka Jacob Black

TEAM JACOB- cuz hes a REAL WEREWOLVE!

Regards: Kayla Patterson

And this is why most, not all, Twilight fans are considered emo idiots that have no clue.

 

[AndThePickles]

LMAO at the Twilight fan letter! And, she's not even a true Twilight fan, or she'd know that the wolves were NOT werewolves, they were shape shifters

 

[Nivek]

LOL! Guys, let me just point this out again, El Guapo at Latino Review writes parody reviews. Take that letter with a grain of salt. It could very well be a joke.

 

[DocHoliday]

I could see them using a Weaving for a Wolfman Meets Frankenstein movie. BTW I actually enjoyed the film quite a bit.

 

[webhead731]

I am so SHOCKED that no one has voted a "1" yet...?

I mean, obviously I'm not trying to hate, and it doesn't deserve that. I liked the movie. Just hard to believe it hasn't gotten a 1.

 

[Spidey-Bat]

LMAO at the Twilight fan letter! And, she's not even a true Twilight fan, or she'd know that the wolves were NOT werewolves, they were shape shifters

I had an argument about this with my cousins at Thanksgiving. Werewolves can't change at will. Just like vampires don't glitter in the sun.

 

[Bad Superman]

Vampires glittering in the sunlight . . . .

 

[Boom]

Even Lugosi's is off. To do the book right, you need to be rid of the image of Dracula as a suave devil in disguise. Dracula in the novel is NEVER attractive and where he grows younger, he NEVER BECOMES attractive. Stoker's Dracula has all the appeal of a rapist. He is a truly EVIL villain. He isn't a gothic, romantic, or tragic hero. He's pure evil. He takes what he wants when he wants it, sometimes just because he can and other times to teach a lesson to those who might seek to destroy him. He's a brutal warlord, a strategist (though one could argue against that by questioning how Dracula inadvertently gets involved with the group of people that are friends with Jonathan Harker, the man he has locked up in his castle, though that's mostly attributed to the literary period, where coincidence is stretched.) He also has hairy palms, rancid breath and a white, droopy mustache. He wears all black as well.

He should NEVER look like Nosferatu. Being a german expressionist film, the disease-ridden rodent features of Murnau's Count Orlock are merely physical representations of the aura of the character. Stoker's Dracula is a plague carrier, but to make him look like that is all wrong. Stoker's Dracula's intent is to blend in as much as authentically possible in England so as to create more vampires from the inside, without ever being caught.

This .

I have this picture saved on my computer. Easily one of the best (and most faithful) depictions of Dracula in terms of Stoker's design.

 

[Wolfman]

Okay, yeah, but that's not very sexy Dracula. Not that Nosferatu was either, but he had his ghastly look to compensate it.

 

[CrimsonMist]

I'll check out Coppola's Dracula. I didn't phrase what I said in regards to Lugosi and Nosferatu well. When I think of Dracula, those are the two designs (by designs I mean appearance, not the character itself) I immediately think of. Even though it's not similar to Stoker's, those movies have reshaped Dracula. Much like The Wolfman in 1941 changed werewolf lore (IIRC, it was the first to represent a werewolf as a humanoid wolf). My main gripe with the Coppola Dracula is the hair, it just looks silly. Though it didn't help that the first time I was exposed to this design was when The Simpsons parodied it on a Treehouse of Horrors special.

I honest to god HATE Coppola's film. It's such a far cry from Stoker's novel while insisting that it is that it's quite an embarrassment to watch. Yea, it's got an awesome score and yea, the techniques they used to film it are impressive. I'll the film credit for that: the making of documentary on the newest DVD is quite interesting when they show the process.

But the costumes are ridiculous. Dracula's silly hairpiece, as you pointed out. His crimson robe that stretches 300 feet behind him? Where's the opera? The gratuitous, unnecessary sex is down right stupid. Bleeding nipples? Wolf rape? I'll pass, thank you. Characterizations and motives are changed or removed just to satisfy the shoddy romantic subplot of the film. Dracula is turned into a wuss. Lucy is turned into a ****e, and by vampiric extension, an even bigger one after she's turned. Van Helsing is turned into a crackpot, and the rest of the male characters are essentially turned into villains: trying to kill the unfortunate, lonely, sympathetic Dracula and ruining the love between him and Mina.

Performances are alright. Gary Oldman is probably the best, given what he had to work with. Could he have made an awesome Dracula as Stoker wrote him? Most likely. But instead he plays a Dracula that Stoker never wrote, but rather a Dracula that both Coppola and writer James V. Hart INSIST appears in the novel: a lonely, romantic, tragic hero. It's not there. It makes me wonder if, rather than actually reading the book, they just watched Dan Curtis's made for TV, written by Richard Matheson version of Dracula starring Jack Palance as the Count and decided to rip it off and make it as pretentious as possible. And yes, Coppola's film is very damn similar to the Dan Curtis film. The only difference is that Palance's Dracula was never a wuss.

I long for the day when someone will make an adaptation of the novel and treat Dracula as the sadistic, terrible villain he truly is.

 

[Wolfman]

I for one am not so attached to Stoker's book that I would mind a movie called "Dracula" that isn't even close to the book. That said, they could make a movie that follows the book more perfectly. Maybe it's time to get really evil vampire on the screen again, now that it's infested with sucking glitters.

 

[Sentinel X]

I love how Wolfman was really brutal and violent in this. But the movie was a huge disappointment. They did not utilize the talented cast and there was virtually no suspense. I was just waiting for Wolfman to transform so he could just rip somebody apart or break them in half....but gore aside the movie was a giant meh.
Not even one genuinely scary moment.

 

[Wolfman]

Aye hear ya. Something integral was lost when Mark Romanek left and Rick Baker was not allowed to do the transformations. I'm really waiting for the extended cut. It has to repear some of the faults of the theatrical release. It has to.

 

[Bad Superman]

I honest to god HATE Coppola's film. It's such a far cry from Stoker's novel while insisting that it is that it's quite an embarrassment to watch. Yea, it's got an awesome score and yea, the techniques they used to film it are impressive. I'll the film credit for that: the making of documentary on the newest DVD is quite interesting when they show the process.

But the costumes are ridiculous. Dracula's silly hairpiece, as you pointed out. His crimson robe that stretches 300 feet behind him? Where's the opera? The gratuitous, unnecessary sex is down right stupid. Bleeding nipples? Wolf rape? I'll pass, thank you. Characterizations and motives are changed or removed just to satisfy the shoddy romantic subplot of the film. Dracula is turned into a wuss. Lucy is turned into a ****e, and by vampiric extension, an even bigger one after she's turned. Van Helsing is turned into a crackpot, and the rest of the male characters are essentially turned into villains: trying to kill the unfortunate, lonely, sympathetic Dracula and ruining the love between him and Mina.

Performances are alright. Gary Oldman is probably the best, given what he had to work with. Could he have made an awesome Dracula as Stoker wrote him? Most likely. But instead he plays a Dracula that Stoker never wrote, but rather a Dracula that both Coppola and writer James V. Hart INSIST appears in the novel: a lonely, romantic, tragic hero. It's not there. It makes me wonder if, rather than actually reading the book, they just watched Dan Curtis's made for TV, written by Richard Matheson version of Dracula starring Jack Palance as the Count and decided to rip it off and make it as pretentious as possible. And yes, Coppola's film is very damn similar to the Dan Curtis film. The only difference is that Palance's Dracula was never a wuss.

I long for the day when someone will make an adaptation of the novel and treat Dracula as the sadistic, terrible villain he truly is.

Totally agree on that. That wig was ridiculous (old Dracula). In Dracula Dead and Loving It it was made into a joke. While I loved the film, the old Dracula costume was one of the least likable I've ever seen for Dracula on film.

 

[Spidey-Bat]

Totally agree on that. That wig was ridiculous (old Dracula). In Dracula Dead and Loving It it was made into a joke. While I loved the film, the old Dracula costume was one of the least likable I've ever seen for Dracula on film.

I always forget about that movie. I don't care what kind of reviews it got, anything with Leslie Nielsen in it is worth watching. Even Mr. Magoo.