Howl-elujah! Ryan Gosling to play Wolfman in next Universal Monster movie

Ryan Gosling is trading in his La La Land dancing shoes for a fur suit. Variety reports that he is…the Wolfman!

If you are into the classic monster movies at all, then you know who the Wolfman is. Lon Chaney Jr. played the role in Universal’s 1941 movie, about a guy who returns to his ancestral home in Wales to reconcile with his estranged father, gets bitten by a wolf (or what he thought was a wolf), and goes through some changes. It’s a bad vacation, all things considered.

Now, just imagine Ryan Gosling in place of Lon Chaney Jr., and you’ve got yourself an idea of how this may go.

Honestly, I’m thrilled about this announcement. Universal famously tried to get a monster movie shared universe — the “Dark Universe” going with 2017’s The Mummy starring Tom Cruise. That failed horribly, so the studio went back to the drawing board and eventually came out with The Invisible Man, a much less franchise-focused movie that was allowed to stand on its own as a good creepy time. On top of getting excellent feedback from critics and audiences alike, that movie made $122 million on a $7 million budget, so it looks like they’ve finally found the right idea.

It sounds like Wolfman will have the same kind of energy. Universal is still looking for directors, but Variety mentions that it may be a little like Nightcrawler, the Jake Gyllenhaal movie where he plays a creepy disaster-chasing tabloid photographer.

If Wolfman forges its own path like The Invisible Man, I’m here for whatever Universal comes up with. Plus it’s Ryan Gosling!

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h/t SYFY Wire