Soon, we may find out if Ryan Gosling has nards...because he’s in talks to star in a modern spin on The Wolfman. (Who, famously, does have nards, in case you didn’t know.)
According to Variety, which broke the news, the monster movie originated from an original pitch by Gosling and has a script by Orange Is the New Black writers Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo. No director is attached yet but among the people in the mix is reportedly Cory Finley, director of HBO’s Bad Education, which starred Van Helsing himself, Hugh Jackman.
Wolfman is just the latest in a growing pile of Universal Monster movies in various stages of development at the studio. After the closure of the ill-fated Dark Universe, the studio decided to just let filmmakers be as creative as possible with the iconic characters, without any interconnected universe involved. The first film with that model, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, was a critical and financial success. James Wan, Karyn Kusama, and Paul Feig are among the other creators with ideas in development.
All that’s known about Gosling’s idea is that he originally considered directing it himself, but ultimately decided against it, and that it’s described as a supernatural Nightcrawler, the 2014 film starring Jake Gyllenhaal. That makes us think of someone something gritty, high energy, and intense—all good things in a horror movie. (According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Gosling would play an anchorman who gets infected in what has been described as having a NETWORK/NIGHTCRAWLER vibe.”)
Now it’s a matter of landing a director and seeing if they can whip it into shape to get in front of cameras.
Update: This article was updated after publication to add The Hollywood Reporter plot detail.
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