1 of 4 | Left to right, Julia Garner, Matilda Firth and Christopher Abbott star in "Wolf Man," opening in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Universal
NEW YORK, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Wolf Man writer-director Leigh Whannell says he wanted his modern re-imagining of the classic Universal Pictures monster to be simultaneously familiar and distinct.
"I don't want to upset anybody. I know the character has a lot of fans, so you're working this tightrope of, 'I don't want to let people down, but I also don't want to give people the same old [story]," Whannell recently told UPI at New York Comic Con.
"So, in the end, if I have to choose a lane, I choose the unique lane," he said. "The character's been done so many times. Let's do something different."
Opening in theaters on Friday, the film stars Christopher Abbott as Blake, a San Francisco family man who moves with his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and their young daughter Ginger (Matlida Firth) to the farmhouse where he was raised in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead.
When the family is attacked by a mysterious creature, they barricade themselves inside the house, but, before long, Blake, who was scratched on the arm, begins acting oddly.
Sam Jaeger, Ben Prendergast and Benedict Hardie co-star.
"It's very contemporary. It's modern. It's set in our world," Whannell said.
"I'm trying to show the monster and his world from the monster's point of view. As opposed to you all watching the transformation, you are experiencing it from the inside out."
To get the character's look right, Whannell and his film-making team looked to the past, namely the original Wolf Man movies starring Lon Chaney Jr. and the 1970s and '80s work of special-effects wizard Rick Baker.
"I'm a huge fan of practical effects. That's what I grew up on," Whannell said.
"Rick Baker's American Werewolf in London transformation is still some of the greatest practical effects work that's ever been done," he added. "And, then, of course, there is the original Wolf Man with Lon Chaney. I want to sit in that tradition."
He said he wouldn't mind using digital magic if he was doing a film about a space alien invasion, for example, but chose a "tactile" approach for Wolf Man.
"I'd probably employ a lot of visual effects to realize this thing, but when you're dealing with Wolf Man on such a human level, to me, it has to be tactile. You have to be able to touch it," he added.
"I don't necessarily want to put a bunch of tracking dots [on an actor] and figure it out later."
Whannell said he knew he was on the right track when his lead makeup artist Arjen Tuiten borrowed from Baker the original makeup box used to transform Chaney from man to beast decades earlier.
"I swear to God, this thing smelled like the 1930s," Whannell recalled.
"I kid you not. I opened it up and we're looking through it. It's got all these brushes from the 1930s, and then we found a typed call sheet for Bride of Frankenstein. I was like: 'What the hell? This should be in a museum somewhere!'"
Whannell -- who is co-creator of the Saw film franchise, as well as the writer-director of the Insidious movies and 2020's Invisible Man -- said he doesn't write movies with specific actors in mind.
"I know a lot of writers do it and I'm envious of those writers because it's like you've already got the person [in mind] and I guess if you're Quentin Tarantino or somebody like that, chances are you're going to get that person no matter who it is," he explained.
"Someone like me? It's simply dangerous to write with somebody in mind because then you have to deal with rejection," he added. "So, I always just write with people in mind that i know personally. Oh, this is Steve or Jeff or whoever. So, when it came time to cast, I didn't have any idea."
He said he knew Abbott and Garner would be great in the roles as soon as he met them.
"I feel like [Abbott] has that Sean Penn thing of unpredictability, like an animal. Chris does have that volatile thing. He does it so well and, so, I think he was perfect," Whannell added.
"For Julia's role, I needed someone who was the audience empath, someone whose emotions are just front and center and everything she feels, you feel, so with their respective skill sets, they felt right for those two roles."