The makeup
Von ennena, 07:41
If you're a admirer in the unique 1941 werewolf motion picture The Wolf Guy, then you certainly really should be incredibly delighted aided by the upcoming remake from Common Pics, slightly renamed The Wolfman.
That's due to the fact star/producer Benicio Del Toro, a longtime Universal monster enthusiast who aided develop the remake, wished to honor the initial inside a way that appealed to fashionable audiences. (Spoilers ahead!)
After a series of mishandled remakes of basic Universal monster movies—Van Helsing anyone?—we think the studio may have finally got it right with this one. Here's six factors why. (Click on the images for larger versions.)
The wolfman
The choice was made early on to keep the form on the werewolf close to Lon Chaney Jr.'s authentic: A bipedal wolfed-out guy, played by Del Toro in makeup (although he appears as a CG character in certain sequences). "We went up to the studio and proposed the idea of doing a remake of your original Wolf Male film along with the intention of really paying homage to those Universal basic horror motion pictures like Frankenstein," Del Toro told a news conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Saturday. "By that, I mean by paying homage is to stay close to the story, to also have the makeup be a big component, have the actor in the makeup being a big part on the motion picture, and they liked the idea."
Makeup artist Rick Baker, who famously created the wolf in An American Werewolf in London, was faithful to the original makeup by Jack P. Pierce, amped up for a present day audience. "I think you really get benefit from an actor with some hair glued on his face," Baker told a news conference.
The characters
The film keeps the first character names: Lawrence Talbot (Del Toro), Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins) and Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt), as well as the gypsy woman Maleva (Geraldine Chaplin), and the English setting, though it changes some on the particulars and especially alters the time period: From 1941 to the 1890s.
It's gothic
The film is designed not as a modern superhero film/monster mash/creature feature but as a traditional gothic horror movie, complete with fog-shrouded forests, a creepy old house, villagers with torches, the works. "I said, 'I want you to create something that we haven't seen inside of a long time. I really want it to look like a traditional gothic horror film. Not necessarily old-fashioned, but I want it to reference what flicks like this used to look like,'" director Joe Johnston said.
The story
The movie's story closely echoes that of your authentic, with some alterations: Lawrence Talbot—the estranged American-raised son of an English nobleman—returns to his family's country estate right after the death of his brother. He meets a woman, Gwen Conliffe (the brother's fiancee in this version of the story), and finds himself caught up in violent events involving the curse with the werewolf.
