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Having wowed audiences with his take on The Invisible Man in 2020, writer-director Leigh Whannell is back with the Wolf Man in 2025, but both monster movies exist because the Dark Universe franchise doesn’t.
In May 2017, Universal Pictures announced a new horror franchise that would feature films about The Mummy, Dr. Jekyll, The Invisible Man, and Frankenstein’s Monster.
Christened the ‘Dark Universe,’ there was star power attached, with Tom Cruise in The Mummy, Johnny Depp playing The Invisible Man, Russell Crowe as Jekyll, and Javier Bardem on monster duty.
A photo of the talent involved was released on the eve of The Mummy hitting screens, while Bride of Frankenstein was announced for February 14, 2019. But The Mummy flopped, Valentine’s Day 2019 came and went without Frankenstein’s bride, and bizarrely, that was the end of the Dark Universe.
The birth of Leigh Whannell’s Invisible Man
Universal PicturesLeigh Whannell directing Elizabeth Moss in The Invisible Man.
For Leigh Whannell, it was the start of something, however. The writer and star of Saw and Insidious was segueing into directing, via horror sequel Insidious: Chapter 3, and action movie Upgrade, which Whannell was editing.
“Universal called me in for a meeting,” Leigh told Mike Flanagan on his podcast. “And I was certain they were going to tell me how great Upgrade was, so I ran to the meeting for my yearly supply of praise, that screenwriters collect like squirrels collecting nuts for the winter. You’ve got to get it where you can!
“When I got there, they didn’t want to talk about Upgrade at all. I was with a bunch of these Universal executives thinking ‘Why am I here?’
“Eventually they started talking about the Dark Universe, and how they had put all this money into it and it hadn’t worked out and it had been this big flop and they were really disappointed.
“One of the executives said ‘To be fair to these movies, they’re hard to write, because if The Invisible Man is the good guy, who’s the bad guy? What’s the Invisible Man afraid of? How can you come up with a guy who can fight him?’
“I just said ‘He’s not the good guy. That’s the answer. He’s the bad guy.’ Then I walked out and didn’t think much of it, and my agent called me and was like ‘They loved your pitch for The Invisible Man!’
“I said ‘I didn’t pitch anything – all I said was just don’t make him the good guy – that’s how you solve that problem. And he said ‘Whatever you said, they liked it, and they’d like you to get started.”
The rest is horror history, with Whannell writing and directing The Invisible Man, and the resulting film grossing nearly $150 million, from a $7 million budget.
How Universal convinced Leigh Whannell to make Wolf Man
Universal PicturesLeigh Whannell directing Julia Garner in Wolf Man.
So when I sat down with Leigh to discuss new movie Wolf Man, I asked if he went to Universal with the pitch this time around. Turns out, he didn’t, with their conversation going much the same way.
“It was something that they mentioned to me again,” says Whannell. “It was similar to in Invisible Man in a way because they were like ‘Hey, what about Wolf Man?’ And my initial reflexive response was ‘Ah – I just did that! I don’t want to repeat myself.’ But that lasted about 10 minutes because I started thinking about the character.
“[Blumhouse boss] Jason Blum’s very good at incepting people, so he’ll say something like ‘Just as an exercise, what would you do, if you were doing this?’ Knowing exactly what he’s doing.
“So I started thinking and I had this image pop into my head of a man and a woman opposite each other. The woman was talking, but he couldn’t understand what she was saying. The speech was just garbled gibberish. And I just grabbed onto that image. I started building the film outwards from there.
“Once you’re at that point, you’re done. You’re making the movie. Once you’re at the point of obsession where you’re thinking about it a lot, that’s when you’re making it.”
And make it Leigh did, with Wolf Man shooting in New Zealand in early 2024, hitting screens this Friday, January 17, 2025, and featuring that image he couldn’t get out of his head.
For more genre fare, check out our list of the best horror movies ever as well as the best scary movies coming soon. While head back to Dexerto for our Wolf Man review when the embargo lifts on January 15.
English (US) ·