Last week, Universal announced that it was moving forward with its shared universe of films featuring reboots of their classic Universal Monsters, kicking off June 9 with the Tom Cruise-starring The Mummy. The studio confirmed some of their casting choices for their high-profile characters, and despite not confirming their lycanthropic thriller being in the works, The Hollywood Reporter claims that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is the rumored actor they’d like to star in their reboot of The Wolf Man.
With last week’s announcement, Universal revealed that they’d be moving forward with Frankenstein’s Monster, The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll, and the film that will follow The Mummy, Bride of Frankenstein, which will be released in 2019. Beauty and the Beast director Bill Condon will helm Bride of Frankenstein, but no casting for that film has been announced.
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In addition to the slate of films they’ll be working on, Universal also confirmed that Javier Bardem will star in Frankenstein’s Monster, Johnny Depp will star in The Invisible Man, and Russell Crowe will reprise his The Mummy role as Dr. Jekyll in that chracter’s film.
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With Bride being two years away from release, it’s possible that Universal might release their monster films every two years, making the timeline for a potential Wolf Man reboot quite far in the future.
The last draft for a Wolf Man reboot that made the rounds was penned by Dave Callaham, who has previously written the 2014 Godzilla and 2005’s Doom, which also starred The Rock. Godzilla is the first in Warner Bros.’ planned shared universe of monster movies, with Kong: Skull Island being the second. The two legendary monsters will collide in Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong.
Considering the critical and financial disappointment of this weekend’s Baywatch, Johnson returning to his action-adventure roots would be a good move on his part, as she’s shown his more physical roles receiving a better return on investment.
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The Mummy is currently tracking at making $40 million its opening weekend, which is a low number for a Tom Cruise-starring action-horror film, which could be a bad sign for this “Dark Universe” of reboots. 2014’s Dracula Untold was intended to be a soft-launch of the shared universe, but with that film’s disappointing performance, it lost its chance to be canon.
Benicio Del Toro starred in a previous reboot, 2010’s The Wolfman, that never found its audience.
[H/T The Hollywood Reporter]
Photo Credit: Getty / Franziska Krug
