It’s been a frighteningly long road to get Universal’s big budget remake of The Wolfman to the big screen. Scary enough to make some fans write the movie off before it even opens. Finally producer Scott Stuber has stepped up to shed a bit of light on what’s been going on.
Stuber sat down with Total Film Magazine for an informative interview that’s a pretty good read. Check out some excerpts below.
“The visual effects work was so complex that some of the stuff wasn’t ready, said Stuber regarding some of the delays. “There were so many textures we had to create, like landscapes of London and all the elements within the London sequence; they just weren’t where they needed to be.”
When talking about the look of the Wolfman himself, Stuber offered the following: “It was never our intention for this to be a CGI-fest. Our whole thing was to honor Lon Chaney, Jr., and the spirit of the original. It’s an authentic, make-up-driven film, but there are transitional pieces that we needed to do in CG, so you didn’t have to cut away during the change in the monster. Integrating the make-up and the effects to make them feel like one cohesive whole was always going to be a challenge, and it’s something we’ve had to work through.”
Stuber insisted director Joe Johnston had done “an excellent job” but there was a need for reshoots. “We needed one more piece between Benicio (Del Toro) and Emily (Blunt). We added a new scene during the post-bite, pre-transformation sequence when he’s starting to realize something’s wrong. It’s a big quality piece of entertainment. It’s beautiful, rich, Gothic, tragic – it’s everything you hope it would be.”
We can only hope. Look for the film here in theatres on February 12th, 2010.