Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man received critical acclaim when it was released back in 2020, as he reshaped the classic movie into a modern take on domestic abuse. Pulling in $145 million from a $7 million budget and an impressive 91% Rotten Tomatoes score, many called for lead Elisabeth Moss to be in award conversations, too, but that didn’t calm the horror filmmaker’s nerves when he set out to adapt his second Universal Monsters story, Wolf Man.
In fact, it had the opposite effect, with Whannell admitting that he felt pressure to replicate his successes and how worried he was that his past works would come back to bite him. “I think the world accepting something that you’ve done is an addictive drug,” he candidly tells GamesRadar+. “All artistry, I guess, is guesswork. Whether you’re writing a song or writing a movie, you’re kind of in this insular little bubble, you’re in your own head when you’re making something. Then suddenly, if you’re lucky enough, you put it out into the world and you don’t get to decide how it’s received.”
“I can’t look back at The Invisible Man and go, ‘I know exactly what I did that made people like it’, he notes. “So when I was writing this, I felt this pressure of, like, ‘What can I do that could match up to that?’ It’s that little internal critic, you know, that you have to deal with.”
Taking inspiration from George Waggner’s similarly named 1941 film, Wolf Man follows Blake (Poor Things‘ Christopher Abbott), a writer-turned-stay-at-home father who inherits his family home after his long-missing father is officially declared deceased. In an attempt to reconnect with his highly successful wife Charlotte (Ozark’s Julia Garner), Blake suggests they take their daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) out to Oregon as they clear out the remote place over the summer. Upon their arrival, though, they’re attacked by some sort of mysterious beast in the woods.
Terrified, the trio are forced to take shelter in the run-down home, but with Blake’s wound worsening, the night soon turns into a waking nightmare.
“I always think of this quote, and I’m not sure if it’s a misquote or an urban legend but there’s some story about Laurence Olivier doing Richard III,” Whannell, who’s no stranger to scary flicks, having co-written Dead Silence, Insidious, and Saw, continues. “Some actor friend of his goes backstage to see him after the performance; he comes into the dressing room and he’s in tears and it’s like, ‘What’s wrong? You were brilliant! That performance, it’s the best I’ve ever seen!’ And Olivier looks up in tears and goes, ‘I know, and I have no idea how I did it.’ I don’t know if that’s true or not but I think it’s a good metaphor for art.”
While Whannell was a little skeptical as to whether lightning could strike twice with Wolf Man, Garner was confident she was in good hands. “I was like, ‘He knows what he’s doing’, which is one of the reasons why I signed on. I knew that he really knows this genre well so I knew I wasn’t walking into an experiment. It was a really good shoot but it wasn’t an easy shoot, just because of what the story is about and how it’s told. It gets really intense very quickly and it stays there ’til the very end but everybody [behind the scenes] was great so I felt lucky.”
Wolf Man releases in theaters on January 17. For more, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming horror movies heading our way.
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