The Wolfman Information

The Wolfman is a 2010 American remake of the 1941 classic werewolf horror film of the same name. This film's second half was significantly altered and expanded from the original film's plot. Directed by Joe Johnston, the film stars Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving. It was released on 10 February 2010 in France and in the United States on 12 February 2010.

While receiving mostly mixed critical reviews and failing to make back its budget at the box office, the movie won an Academy Award for Best Makeup.

Plot

In 1891, Ben Talbot is confronted by an unknown creature in the Blackmoor woods. He tries to escape, but is attacked, chased and killed by the beast.

Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt), Ben's fiancée, has contacted his brother, Lawrence Talbot (Benicio del Toro), the world-renowned Shakespearean actor, saying that Ben disappeared a month ago. Lawrence leaves his theatre tour to return to his family's estate in Blackmoor where he has an uneasy reunion with his estranged father, Sir John (Anthony Hopkins). Ben's body, found the day before, has been stored at a slaughterhouse. When Lawrence views his brother's remains, he is horrified. Among Ben's personal effects is a medallion that Ben apparently purchased from gypsies. Later at the local pub, Lawrence overhears the locals discussing the killing. Many blame the gypsies who are camped outside the town, while another patron claims there was a similar murder several decades earlier, and a werewolf was the suspected killer. The same night Lawrence has flash backs as he tours his old family's home. It is revealed that Lawrence's mother, Solana, had committed suicide when he was a boy. Lawrence saw his father standing over her dead body, after which he was sent to an insane asylum in London, ostensibly for suffering delusions.

After Gwen returns to London, Lawrence visits the gypsies during a full moon. The local townspeople then raid the camp to confiscate a dancing bear they believe is the killer. But a creature suddenly attacks, slaughtering many people. While chasing a frightened young boy who has run into the woods, Lawrence is savagely bitten by the creature. The townspeople chase it off before Lawrence is killed. As a gypsy woman named Maleva sutures his neck wounds, her daughter insists Lawrence should be killed. Maleva refuses, saying he is still a man and that only a loved one can release him.

Gwen returns to Talbot Hall to care for Lawrence. He suffers several fitful dreams, but after a few weeks, appears to have completely recovered. Sir John's Sikh manservant, Singh (Art Malik), shows Lawrence the silver bullets he has and implies that something monstrous is loose in Blackmoor. Inspector Aberline (Hugo Weaving) arrives to investigate the recent murders. He suspects Lawrence is responsible based on his mental history and masterful portrayals of mentally-ill protagonists such as Hamlet and Macbeth. As the night draws near, several hunters from the town take position in the woods, waiting for the beast to appear. Worried about what might happen, Lawrence sends Gwen away. He then follows Sir John to Solana's crypt. He tells Lawrence that he has been "dead" for years, then locks himself into the room alone. Lawrence then undergoes a painful transformation into the Wolfman before running off into the woods and killing the hunters stationed there. The next day, Aberline and the local police arrest a bloodied, now-human Lawrence.

Taken to the same asylum he was committed at as a child, Lawrence is subjected to ice-water and electrotherapy treatments overseen by Dr. Hoenneger (Antony Sher). Sir John visits Lawrence and explains that many years before while hunting in India, he was bitten by a feral boy infected with lycanthropy. Lawrence realises that he saw his father, as a werewolf, kill his mother. After that tragedy, Sir John had relied on Singh to imprison him during full moons. Yet one night, Sir John became drunk and got into a heated argument with Ben. Having knocked Singh out and unable to lock himself in, Sir John killed Ben and attacked the gypsy camp. Now intoxicated by the werewolf's immense power, Sir John no longer intends to restrain that potency.

On the night of the full moon, Dr. Hoenneger presents Lawrence, strapped in a chair, to his colleagues as an interesting case study. As the full moon streams through the window, Lawrence transforms into a werewolf, breaks loose and kills Hoenneger. Pursued by Aberline, the Wolfman then goes on a bloody rampage in the streets of London. The next day, the now-human Lawrence goes to Gwen's antique shop for help. The two realise they are falling in love. Aberline arrives and searches the shop, but Lawrence has already escaped and returned to Blackmoor.

Lawrence arrives at Talbot Hall and finds Singh's mutilated body hanging in the foyer. He loads a gun with Singh's silver bullets, but when he attempts to shoot Sir John, he discovers that Sir John had secretly removed the powder from the cartridges years ago. When the full moon rises, both transform into werewolves. A vicious fight erupts, and the house is set on fire. Lawrence then kills his father. Gwen arrives hoping to save Lawrence, followed by Aberline, who attempts to shoot the Wolfman. Gwen disrupts the shot and then flees with Aberline's revolver. The Wolfman bites Aberline, but chases Gwen rather than finish him off.

The Wolfman traps Gwen above a gorge. She pleads with Lawrence, whose consciousness faintly recognises her. As he hesitates, Gwen shoots him with a silver bullet. As he lies dying, the Wolfman transforms back to Lawrence and thanks Gwen for doing what needed to be done. The wounded Aberline arrives, along with the mob, as Lawrence dies in peace. Aberline looks with horror at the bite wound in his shoulder and then at the moon and realises what will be his inevitable fate.

As Talbot Hall burns in the distance, the Wolfman's howl is heard for the last time.

Cast

• Benicio del Toro as Lawrence Talbot/The Wolfman
• Anthony Hopkins as Sir John Talbot
• Emily Blunt as Gwen Conliffe
• Hugo Weaving as Inspector Francis Aberline
• Geraldine Chaplin as Maleva
• Art Malik as Singh
• Antony Sher as Dr. Hoenneger
• David Schofield as Constable Nye
• David Sterne as Kirk
• Simon Merrells as Ben Talbot
• Cristina Contes as Solana Talbot
• Michael Cronin as Dr. Lloyd
• Nicholas Day as Colonel Montford
• Clive Russell as MacQueen
• Roger Frost as Reverend Fisk

Max von Sydow appears as an elderly man who gives Lawrence the wolf-head cane; his part was cut from the theatrical film but is restored on the DVD release. Make-up artist Rick Baker makes a cameo appearance as the Gypsy man who is the first killed. The Wolfman's howl incorporated elements from Gene Simmons and David Lee Roth, as well as opera singers and animal impersonators. Frank Welker did the roars and growls of the werewolves and the feral boy.

Production

In March 2006, Universal Pictures announced the remake of The Wolf Man with actor Benicio del Toro, a fan of the original and collector of Wolf Man memorabilia in the lead role. Screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker was attached to the screenplay, developing the original film's story to include additional characters as well as plot points that would take advantage of modern visual effects. Del Toro also looked towards Werewolf of London and The Curse of the Werewolf for inspiration.

In February 2007, director Mark Romanek was attached to helm The Wolfman. In January 2008, Romanek left the project because of creative differences. Brett Ratner emerged as a frontrunner to replace Romanek, but the studio also met with Frank Darabont, James Mangold and Joe Johnston. They were also interested in Bill Condon and Martin Campbell was interested. Johnston was hired to direct on 3 February 2008, and the film's shooting schedule and budget remained as intended. Johnston hired David Self to rewrite the script.

Shooting took place from 3 March to 23 June 2008, in Britain. At that time the film was budgeted at US$85 million. They shot at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, Chatsworth in Derbyshire and Castle Combe in Wiltshire. They transformed Chatsworth House by adding weeds, dead grass and ivy. They also shot in Lacock in Wiltshire, a village conserved by the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, for a day. Universal donated £5,000 to the village, in return for filming in the tithe barn for a scene involving frozen corpses. A funeral scene was also shot beside the Temple of Ancient Virtue at Stowe House, with the temple coated in false ivy and copious amounts of smoke/mist floating over the setting. There was also scenes filmed on Dartmoor, Devon at Foggintor Quarry. Pick-ups at Pinewood were conducted in May 2009.

Rick Baker created the make-up for The Wolfman. When he heard Universal was remaking the film, he eagerly pursued it, as both The Wolf Man and Frankenstein inspired him to become a make-up artist as a child. He acknowledged transforming del Toro was not difficult because he is a hairy man: "Going from Benicio to Benicio as the Wolf Man isn't a really extreme difference. Like when I did An American Werewolf in London, we went from this naked man to a four-legged hound from Hell, and we had a lot of room to go from the transformation and do a lot of really extreme things. Here we have Benicio del Toro, who's practically the Wolf Man already, to Benicio del Toro with more hair and bigger teeth."

Baker and del Toro were adamant about the design resembling the make-up created by Jack Pierce, but Romanek went through thousands of concept art. When Johnston signed on, Baker returned to his second design, which is the finished result. The make-up took three hours to apply, and one hour to remove. New pieces of latex prosthetic makeup and loose hair was applied to del Toro's face each day, while several dentures and wigs were created in case some were damaged. Baker said the transformation would likely be computer-generated, which disappointed him as he would not be involved and felt it would look unrealistic (as the animators did not have his knowledge of the design). Director Joe Johnston explained that joining the film three weeks before photography placed limitations on his ability to film without using CG effects. He has stated, "I recognised that there were things that I was going to be able to do from the beginning to the end... and things that I had to rely on post-production for." In reference to filming Benicio del Toro's actual transformation into the Wolfman, Johnston further explained, "I decided to basically shoot just Benicio, in the sequence where ... he transforms ... and decide in post-production what I wanted the transformation to be. That was really my main reason [for using CG]; it gave me so much more flexibility." In February 2009, ZBrush art of the transformation by Baker leaked online. In addition to the film, at the 2009 Halloween Horror Nights, Universal Studios Florida added The Wolfman to the event.

Release

During the course of its production, The Wolfman saw its release date postponed several times. Originally scheduled for a 12 November 2008 release, it was first pushed back to 12 February 2009. Then, in April 2008, it got moved to 3 April 2009. In December 2008, Universal moved the release to 6 November 2009. Finally, the film was yet again moved in late July 2009 to 12 February 2010. In most European countries the film was released on 10 and 11 February 2010. The film premiered in Rome on 27 January 2010.

The cast and crew were back on location re-shooting the film in the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College and park in Greenwich over the weekends of 22-25 and 30-31 May 2009. The purpose of the re-shoots was to change the way one werewolf looked in the film. Previously, it stood on two legs, but now, he stands on four. Also, an action scene was added between "the Wolf Man and the Werewolf" according to Vic Armstrong.

The first trailer for The Wolfman was attached to Inglourious Basterds, which was released to cinemas on 21 August 2009. The unrated director's cut is released with an exclusive Wolfman glow-in-the-dark cup and a Wolfman Dog Tag Keychain.

Critical reception

The film has received generally unfavourable reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 35% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 208 reviews, with an average score of 4.8/10. The critical consensus is: "Suitably grand and special effects-laden, The Wolfman suffers from a suspense-deficient script and a surprising lack of genuine chills." It received a weighted average score of 43% on Metacritic based on 36 reviews, indicating mixed or average reviews.

Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film two and a half stars out of four. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone assigned the film one and a half stars out of four, concluding that "The Wolfman bites, but not "? I think "? in the way the filmmakers intended." Owen Glieberman of Entertainment Weekly praised Del Toro's performance as Lawrence, comparing it favourably to Lon Chaney, Jr.'s, in the original.

In 2010, The Wolfman won at the 37th Saturn Awards for best make-up.

In 2011, the film and makeup artists, Rick Baker and Dave Elsey, received an Academy Award for Best Makeup for the 83rd Academy Awards.

Box office

The film grossed $19,850,000 on its opening day, and $31,479,235 in its opening weekend, coming in third at the box office after Valentine's Day and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. The Wolfman grossed $142,634,358 worldwide, barely bringing back its $150 million budget, plus $20,715,505 from DVD-sales.

Soundtrack

It was reported that Danny Elfman wrote a dark, melodic, and moody score for The Wolfman, which was rejected by the studio after the film was cut down half an hour in length and the music became too "wall-to-wall," creating what Johnston called too much repetition. Due to his not being able to come back and re-score (because he was contractually obligated to work on Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland feature film), the producers decided rather than to expand on his ideas with a new composer (a path that they would eventually take), to take a gamble and attempt a different composer, along with a completely different approach, which would include extensive re-shooting of scenes. The idea was to quicken the pace and strike a similar tone to the successful Underworld films, turning a slow-paced story into a much faster one. Paul Haslinger subsequently wrote an electronic contemporary incarnation of The Wolfman score, which the studio quickly realised was not appropriate for the late 19th century Gothic setting. Elfman's score, which was previously recorded is as a result, the one that is used in the final film instead.

Universal decided to switch back scores close to the last minute, realising their experiment had failed. It is believed the material Haslinger did record specifically for the studio as his intended version of the score was subsequently destroyed shortly after his removal. Whether Haslinger retained any of his work for personal purposes is currently unknown. There has of late been two versions of the film Universal has known to have shown to test audiences, both featured Elfman's score in some form. Elfman's original recording was used in the final film, however, some additional music composers (Conrad Pope, Edward Shearmur, and Thomas Lindgren) were brought in to shape Elfman's score to fit the final cut of the film, as well as compose new material for the film.

Some confusion has surfaced regarding this, as many news sources are claiming Elfman never "completed" his score, sidestepping that he did, in fact, complete it, but had not re-shaped it to fit the studio's ever evolving changes. Conrad Pope, additional composer, previously worked with Elfman on Sleepy Hollow as an orchestrator and is a frequent collaborator with composer John Williams.

A similar situation formed for Elfman's Spider-Man 2, where the music in the final film stood mostly separate from the original work on the CD release, which reflected the first incarnation of the score. Varese Sarabande Records has announced a CD of Elfman's score, which is already available on iTunes. In terms of style, Elfman's Wolfman is very much inspired by the works of Bartok, Prokofiev and Bernard Herrmann, as well as the soundtrack Wojciech Kilar wrote for Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 version of Dracula, a film which Anthony Hopkins also co-starred in. The main theme has a similar "Eastern European edge" to it.

Danny Elfman's version of The Wolfman score was officially released on 23 February, 11 days after the film's release. This is actually the original score Elfman made for the earlier cut of The Wolfman before it was temporarily rejected. A believed-to-be sample of Haslinger's rejected score was released around the same time, but was ultimately confirmed a false sample by Film Score Monthly record producer Ford A. Thaxton and Haslinger himself.

Dark ambient musician Lustmord mentions on his personal blog that he made "some sounds for the score". However, he is not credited for his work on the film.

Elfman's score was made available via publisher Varèse Sarabande

Merchandising

Several companies are involved in the merchandising of the film. Rubies Costumes is making both child and adult costumes. Because costumes are sold to retailers months in advance, the Halloween costumes came out in 2009 since the film being pushed back to 2010 happened after the costumes had been shipped to retailers.

Mezco Toyz is making 7 inch and 12 inch tall Wolfman action figures. They are also producing replicas of the medallion from the film.

In early January 2010, Mezco Toyz donated the prototypes of the toys to the Museum of the Moving Image in New York. The company released a 7 and a 12-Inch figure, alongside publishing the Wolfman Collectible Medallion Replica.

Novelisation

Jonathan Maberry wrote a novelisation to the film, of which the paperback was released on 2 February 2010, the same day the original The Wolf Man film was re-released on DVD with Universal's Legacy Series. It includes a scene early in the story which explains how Lawrence obtained the cane with a silver wolf's head (which features prominently in the original film but only sparingly in the remake), with Lawrence exchanging his ordinary wooden cane with an elderly Frenchman for the silver wolf's head cane on his initial trip to Blackmoor. It also has Gwen and her father owning an apothecary rather than an antiques shop, suggesting this was changed during the remake's development to be closer to the original film.

Extended cut

Director Joe Johnston has claimed that an extended cut of the film will be released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Joe Johnston stated that the 17 minutes of additional footage will be re-instated on the extended cut.

Johnston said the reason for deleting the 17 minutes from the final cut was "to push the story along so that audiences would get to the first Wolfman transformation sooner." The extra footage contains the origin of the silver cane-sword and also the uncredited and completely removed part played by Max von Sydow who was the original owner of the cane. The character indicates that he obtained it in Gévaudan, a French province where in the 18th century villagers were attacked by an unknown beast known as the Beast of Gévaudan.

Though Max von Sydow's credit is absent from the theatrical cut, there is still a credit for "Assistant to Mr. von Sydow."

Home media

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the US on 1 June 2010. Both editions include the theatrical version and the new director's cut, which incorporates 17 minutes of footage back into the film. The release date for the UK has also been announced, although it has gone through changes; originally it was thought to be announced for 14 June, but it was later confirmed for 7 June. A limited edition in Steelbook packaging, exclusive to the UK, is available on Blu-ray Disc. The UK Standard Definition DVD only contains the Extended Director's Cut and the Deleted Scenes. The Blu-ray Disc includes many special features and featurettes on the making of the film, including two alternate endings of the film. The only special features included on the standard DVD are a set of deleted and extended scenes. Best Buy has released an exclusive 2-Disc DVD set that includes a bonus disc featuring most of the BD features, and also includes the standard DVD with the extended and deleted scenes.

Also to appear on the Blu-ray Disc version will be the opportunity for viewers to stream the original 1941 version of The Wolf Man.

The original Universal Studios logo used in the original Wolfman film was inserted at the very beginning of the Uncut version, either as way to pay homage and respect to the original Wolfman and the original Universal Horror films or to foreshadow the return of the Universal Monster films.

Reboot

Despite underperforming at the box office, Universal originally planned a series of direct-to-video sequels but later reworked the project into a sequel of the original film rather than the remake. Universal later announced that the reboot would be a separate series with no connection to the original 1941 film or the remake. The film's official title is Werewolf: The Beast Among Us.