After having taken a bit of a break from acting after First Man, Gosling seems to be determined to sign on to promising projects left and right while productions remain shut-down in Hollywood. Having just recently signed on to Phil Lord & Chris Miller’s adaptation of Andy Weir’s “Project Hail Mary”, the Blade Runner 2049 star has set his sights on another high profile gig with a leading role for Universal Picture’s Wolfman revival.
Per Variety, while no director has been attached currently, Corey Finley – director of two critically acclaimed films with Thoroughbreds and Bad Education – seems to be in the running. They report that Gosling himself had considered putting his hat in the ring to direct it himself, but all parties had agreed it was best for him to simply star in it instead. Hot off the heels of Universal’s success with The Invisible Man, this is set to be a “Nightcrawler-esque” thriller set in present day, with an “obvious supernatural twist”
This is something of a departure for Gosling, an indie darling who has said no to many big budget offers in the past. Were this to become a hit, it’s not impossible to see Gosling signing on for a multiple picture deal.
Universal themselves had struggled in the past to get their “Dark Universe” off the ground, having hit false-starts between 2014’s “Dracula Untold” and 2017’s “The Mummy” imploding both critically and commercially. The latter of which, boasting a big budget and even bigger movie stars, was meant to kick off an MCU-style shared universe, with a cast that was set to include Javier Bardem as Frankenstein’s Monster and Johnny Depp as The Invisible Man in future installments. The latter character did eventually get a successful cinematic relaunch in February 2020, one of the few success stories in film so far this year, and it feels as though Universal has finally found their stride with what to do with these films. Gosling’s Wolfman joins Karyn Kusama’s Dracula and Elizabeth Banks’ The Invisible Woman as new Universal Monster films in development.
Source: Variety