Joe Johnston? Who’s That? … THE WOLF MAN Gets A New Director

Reader Comments

1. Aniya 02/04/2008 @ 8:00am

   The Rocketeer, Jumanji and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids too
   I prefer Joe !

2. Geert Jan 02/04/2008 @ 9:03am

   I was gonna say! Joe Johnston from The Rocketeer fame of course.

   Anyway, remake schmremake. I’ve never seen the original, looking much more forward to watching that.

3. David Bigler 02/04/2008 @ 9:29am

   Joe Johnston was also one of the leading designers for the original Star Wars trilogy.

4. Ard Vijn 02/04/2008 @ 10:55am

   I don’t want to turn this into a Chuck Norris sort of hype, but Joe Johnston is one of the classic figureheads of early Industrial Light & Magic. Special Effects-wise he is one of the absolute greats, amongst people like Dennis Muren, John Dykstra and Stan Winston.

   And then he turned director…
   Fair enough, he’s certainly not bad (JP III is ten times the movie JP II was) but he needs a good script to get the story going.

5. Collin Armstrong 02/04/2008 @ 11:19am

   Johnston was actually responsible for designing Boba Fett(!).

   Out of all the names mentioned for this job, Johnston getting the go-ahead is about the best way things could’ve turned out, I think.  With his being a real fan of classic Hollywood cinema, I’m not sure Johnston’s THE WOLF MAN will look or feel anything like Romanek’s - it might hew closer to the original - but I’ll give Johnston’s vision a chance where I probably wouldn’t have even bothered illegally downloading Ratner’s.

   And let’s get some more ROCKETEER love going around here!

6. eDWeiRD 02/04/2008 @ 12:58pm

   Am I bad for having never seen The Rocketeer? I still can’t figure out how that happened. Going to do my homework now.

7. Rhythm-X 02/04/2008 @ 2:44pm

   Joe Johnston > Brett Ratner.  Times one thousand.

8. sharkbait 02/04/2008 @ 3:53pm

   Of all the Joe Johnston movies listed here so far, The Rocketeer is easily the best one. His very best movie has not been mentioned, however: October Sky. It’s a great, underrated movie, with a young Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role. Basically Hula Girls with rockets instead of hula dancing.

9. Swarez 02/04/2008 @ 4:35pm

   Didn’t he do Virus as well. I liked that one as well and The Rocketeer. But I was hoping for someone who is not known for doing action films and makes me wonder why they chose him of all those candidates.

   Never understood the Ratner hate even though he would be wrong for this film.

10. crazybee 02/04/2008 @ 6:30pm

    I assumed everyone knew who Joe Johnston was…

11. Garth 02/04/2008 @ 8:12pm

    Whatever.  Doesn’t matter who they got if they’re just going to have him half-ass shoot Romanek’s movie.

12. The Visitor 02/04/2008 @ 9:20pm

    The Rocketeer may be his best, but none of his films have been truly great. the rest are just forgettable box-office fare. to handle a legendary property like Wolf Man, one would have expected a big name director. Coppola, perhaps? for what he did with Dracula?

    but of all the names thrown about, i was most excited about John Landis. for one thing, he worked with Rick Baker before, and look what the result was - one of the seminal horror/comedy movies of all time.

13. Garth 02/04/2008 @ 9:39pm

    Honestly, for me, the whole problem is that, whoever you get, they’re not going to be making their movie.  I don’t think that Landis or Darabont or any other big name director was ever going to do the movie, because this is a move about saving the money that they’ve already invested in the movie and, since they were about 2-3 weeks from shooting when Romanek left, this is about hiring someone who doesn’t have a problem going by another man’s vision and trying to recreate it.

    I really don’t get the hype and speculation, because really, who cares?  It’s going to the same as Ratner doing X3 (albeit, probably a better movie, with the pedigree of the talent involved), Johnston is doing a hit and run.  This thing shoots in 14 days, how does anyone think that any of these directors was going to go in and make a “Darabont movie” or a “Landis movie”?  They’re making a Romanek movie.  Or rather, a shadow of a Romanek movie.

    And also, I don’t know why anyone would expect a name director.  Romanek is not a name director.  Most of the general public knows one movie of his, One Hour Photo, and how many people think that was a great movie?  I would bet that most think it is a very good looking movie, but a great movie? 

    The sad thing is, this appeared to be something of a work of passion from Romanek and now we’re going to get a watered down version of his movie.

14. The Visitor 02/04/2008 @ 10:03pm

    that is actually a very good point, Garth. but since it is not a case similar to The Invasion, because The Wolf Man hasn’t started shooting, perhaps we could still hold out hope that the director could imbue his vision, no matter how much of it, into the production?

15. Garth 02/05/2008 @ 2:02am

    That’s kinda the thing though.  I haven’t heard anything about them pushing it back, and I would think on a $100 hollywood movie, pretty much everything would be locked in at this point.

    And honestly, my worry is that they aren’t looking for someone to put their stamp on it, imbue their vision, etc.  My worry is that what they’re looking for is someone who will, for lack of better phrasing, will do what he’s told.  And I think for the most part, my worries were confirmed when it was all but announced that Universal WAS going to hire Ratner.  They didn’t hire him, which was good for the PR of the movie probably more than it was good for the movie itself and let’s face it, of all the names that interviewed for the job, which one is the one that sticks out the most as “one of these does not belong”?  I would say it’s the guy who (as much as I really liked October Sky) is probably best known as the guy who directed the Jurassic Park movie that Spielberg decided not to direct.

16. Swarez 02/05/2008 @ 2:36am

    You are absolutely right Garth. If a name director had come along they would have wanted to make “their” version of the film which would have pushed back the production even more. Maybe they should have let Rick Baker direct it. He and Romanek were on the same page I’m guessing and I’m sure Baker has absorbed wast ammount of filmmaking knowlidge over the years.

    But I want to know what the beef was between Romanek and the Studios.

17. Collin Armstrong 02/05/2008 @ 9:44am

    Obviously part of the rush has to do with the writers’ strike.  They have a property, which, in the eyes of the money men, is ready to roll.  They need to get it going in order to have something to put out there in the next year or so.  I’m in 100% agreement - it would be a much more promising situation if whoever was brought on could make THEIR film.  All very strange - who knows what the final product will look like.

18. Garth 02/05/2008 @ 9:56am

    Swarez, that’s actually a good idea re: Dick Baker.  That would have been a decent choice, probably as good a choice as any other.

    I don’t know how true these rumours about the strike being over are, but I think it would be interesting if it ended in the next week.  I wonder if the studio would rethink their choice and consider giving it to a Darabont or whoever and let him have a crack at rewriting it for himself or something.

    And yeah, I’m still intrigued by what the fallout was between Romanek and the studio.  I would think that everything would be in place three weeks before shooting, that there wouldn’t even really be any decisions left that would be big enough to cause such a rift.

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