When Universal Pictures' plan for an MCU-style "Dark Universe" fell apart, Blumhouse wasted no time putting its own spin on those iconic movie monsters. The Invisible Man was among the first and received rave reviews before grossing $144.5 million worldwide on a mere $7 million budget.
While filmmaker Leigh Whannell has since moved on to Wolf Man, there's been chatter for years about him helming a sequel revolving around Elisabeth Moss' "Invisible Woman."
The movie ended by teasing a vigilante-style follow-up and both Jason Blum and James Wan have left the door open to it becoming a reality in previous interviews.
Unfortunately, Whannell doesn't seem overly interested and closed the door on stepping behind the camera for The Invisible Woman while talking to The Hollywood Reporter (via FearHQ.com).
"An ending is the hardest thing to do in screenwriting. It’s the holy grail of screenwriting, and I revere movies with great endings. In fact, I just went to the Chinese Theatre and saw Se7en in IMAX. I’ve seen that film so many times, but seeing it on a big screen really hammered home how great that ending is. I envy that powerful ending as a screenwriter."
With Invisible Man, you talked about the track 'Denouement,' and because I love that note that the film ended on, I can’t imagine gluing more story onto that. Sequels are mostly driven by the economics of Hollywood. “We scored, we did well, and let’s do it again. Let’s get them back there.” And I’ve been a front-row viewer of that. I have also written two movies [Saw and Insidious] that have turned into long-running franchises with varying degrees of artistic success. I’m not going to pretend that every movie in the Saw franchise is... That film has become its own beast, and I sit outside of it now."
"I was so happy with Invisible Man’s ending that I just don’t feel the artistic need to go forward with it. The financial need is something different. The studio might look at that and say, 'Well, we feel like it should keep going because we want to make more money.' But on an artistic level, I’m like, 'That’s a nice closed door there. Let’s just leave it closed.'"
The moment has perhaps passed for that sequel now, though it's unclear what Whannell has planned following Wolf Man (which hasn't received the same level of acclaim as The Invisible Man so far).
Elsewhere in the conversation, the filmmaker was asked about a previous version of Wolf Man which we know Barbie and The Fall Guy star Ryan Gosling was attached to star in.
Ultimately, it sounds like the biggest issue was scheduling issues caused by what's proven to be a fairly chaotic few years in Hollywood between the pandemic and the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023.
"I was working with Ryan Gosling, initially. He was attached to star, and we were developing it and developing it. Then, there were scheduling issues, so I was like, 'You know what? I’m just going to move on to another project.' And then it suddenly came back around, which I was happy about, because I was able to continue with the script that I had already written. I was able to just pick it right up."
"Ryan, unfortunately, because of his schedule, wasn’t able to [continue], but it was definitely a twistier road than I’ve taken in the past. In the case of Upgrade and Invisible Man, it was A, B, C. It was very linear: write the movie, look for financiers, find the cast, shoot the film. So this was definitely the most winding road to making a film, but I’m so happy that I got to make it."
Wolf Man co-stars Sam Jaeger (The Handmaid’s Tale), Ben Prendergast (The Sojourn) and Benedict Hardie (The Invisible Man), with newcomer Zac Chandler, Beatriz Romilly (Shortland Street) and Milo Cawthorne (Shortland Street).
Wolf Man is directed by Whannell and written by Whannell & Corbett Tuck. The movie is now playing in theaters.