Leigh Whannell Isn’t Finished With Universal Monsters
The director of The Invisible Man and Wolf Man reveals which classic monster he’d like to reboot next.
We’re still a few months away from seeing Leigh Whannell’s modern-day take on the Wolf Man, but fans are already wondering which classic horror story the director could remix next. Fortunately, the feeling is mutual: even after helming The Invisible Man and Wolf Man, Whannell remains interested in Universal’s catalog of classic monsters. He might even know which monster movie he’d like to reboot after Wolf Man.
In an interview with ScreenRant at this year’s New York Comic-Con, Whannell expressed an interest in adapting the story of Jekyll and Hyde. “That book, when I was a kid, really creeped me out, the concept of it,” the filmmaker explained. “Of all the monsters, that one used to really stay with me. There’s something about the hero and the villain being the same person.”
Per Whannell, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde could provide great material for a modern-day retelling, and it’s not hard to see why. The original tale follows a scientist, Dr. Henry Jekyll, in his attempts to separate his “good” side from his “bad.” One fateful experiment manifests Mr. Hyde, who becomes the personification of Jekyll’s baser urges. The disparate personalities eventually battle to control one body, a concept that could easily align with a modern take on mental illness. Whannell isn’t exactly sure how he would adapt the story for the 2020s — but given his track record with other Universal Monsters, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde would be in great hands.
The Invisible Man set the tone for a new take on classic monster movies, and director Leigh Whannell is just getting started.
With The Invisible Man, Whannell revolutionized a classic monster that most horror fans had likely forgotten. The 2020 film takes the concept of a man who drinks an invisibility potion (and promptly succumbs to insanity) and totally flips it on its head, instead using the unseen to explore the dark corners of an abusive relationship. Wolf Man, due in 2025, takes a similar approach to the classic story of a werewolf. The film follows a family man (Christopher Abbott) who’s somehow infected by a mysterious animal. His transformation puts his wife (Julia Garner) and young daughter (Matilda Firth) in imminent danger, a plot that Whannell says reflects some of his greatest fears.
“The human body and the different ways that it fails, the fragility of the human body, is terrifying to me,” Whannell tells Inverse’s Hoai-Tran Bui. “Imagine experiencing Alzheimer’s from inside the body of that person. It’s one thing to watch it; it’s horrible. But imagine being that person. Imagine slowly losing the world piece by piece.”
Blake’s (Abbott) transformation takes on new meaning from Whannell’s perspective. Wolf Man will be much more than a straightforward story about a werewolf, as plenty of adaptations have followed that brief already. Instead, the film will explore the strains of a debilitating illness through the lens of sci-fi and horror. “That was kind of the idea that made the most sense to me, just in terms of this character,” Whannell continued.
It’ll be exciting to see how that concept changes the story of the Wolf Man, and fortunately, we won’t have to wait much longer to see Whannell’s vision. As for Jekyll and Hyde, there’s no telling when (or even if) we’ll ever see Whannell’s take on the monster film — but if Wolf Man does well, Universal and Blumhouse will undoubtedly want more from the director.
