And so the wait to see Universal’s remake of The Wolfman goes on. And on. And on. And… you get the idea.
The Joe Johnston-directed horror movie, in which Benicio Del Toro comes over all Peter Mayhew, has just had its release date changed for the fourth time, with Universal shifting it from its November 6 States date to February 12, 2010.
That’s virtually a full year away from its first date, Feb. 13 of this year. It was initially moved to April, then November, ostensibly to stake out a better date for a horror flick. And now it’s back to a Valentine’s Day weekend slot.
Already, you can feel the angry villagers of the internet storming Universal’s castle with pitchforks and flaming torches, convinced that the movie must be an unholy abomination. But not so fast – Universal is claiming that the decision was taken for purely economic reasons, with studies involving bar charts, graphs and PowerPoint presentations showing them that movies released in February make more money than those released in November.
And that, like a Big Brother contestant, is a no-brainer. However, Universal are clearly conscious that they will have to fight negative perceptions of the film (which has had something of a troubled production history, with Johnston replacing original director, Mark Romanek, late in the day); to that end, they’re going to start aggressively promoting the film around Halloween, at their own theme park in LA.
Certainly, all that Empire has seen and heard about this film (check out last month’s issue for an extensive set visit report) is encouraging, and so we remain optimistic about the date change. But if The Wolfman moves again, we might start snarling a bit.