Well I sure didn’t see this coming. Deadline Hollywood has the unfortunate news that Mark Romanek has just left his position as director of THE WOLF MAN, throwing the film into what I’ve got to assume is chaos (as it was supposed to begin shooting this February, with an eye toward releasing it almost exactly a year later). Apparently it wasn’t cold-feet that made the music video director quit, it was unhappiness with the fairly ample $100 million budget.
Says an insider: “He’s a purist, an artiste, an exquisite craftsman, but he just had a budget schedule he couldn’t accommodate.”
I’ve got to believe the film will be pushed back at this point (and it’s already been pushed back once or twice) as Universal scrambles to find a new director. This can’t be good for Wolfy. Whatever director does board the project will have to be satisfied with Andrew Kevin Walker’s screenplay, as there won’t be any rewriting going down until the WGA strike ends… Will THE WOLF MAN get halted indefinitely?
This is a shame, since I was happy with the choice of Romanek, as I really dug ONE HOUR PHOTO and his videos are innovative. Let’s just hope they Universal doesn’t settle for a “Wiseman” or a – gulp – “Ratner”…