The long, ugly, and often delayed road to “The Wolfman” came to an end last Friday when the film, with an estimated budget somewhere in the $150 million range opened to scathing reviews and in third place. Through it all, director Joe Johnston has been surprisingly chipper and remarkably forthcoming in interviews especially for a director who joined the film only four weeks away from its shooting start date and whose name will forever be saddled with this trainwreck. Speaking to Time Out London, Johnston very clearly outlines the various issues that left to original director Mark Romanek’s departure and what of his vision of the film remained intact. What emerges is a portrait of a film that probably would’ve been better off (and cheaper) had Romanek stayed on board.
While Romanek was rumored to have butted heads with producers, it was his request to have an additional twenty days to shoot — that was turned down by the studio — that led him to leave. Johnston got the gig by saying he would be able shoot the existing script in eighty days — only to end up adding seventeen pages to the script, thus expanding the shooting schedule that Romanek had wanted anyway. “One of the issues with the previous director was that he had said he needed another 20 days and that became one of the areas of disagreement that led to [the studio] looking for a new director. I told them I could do it. But after I was hired, we soon added about 17 pages back to the script, so that schedule no longer applied.”
And while Johnston does credit Romanek with making “a lot of the correct choices,” there was a small rewrite done on the script by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self and sequences in the original draft that were cut to save time and money…..sequences that were eventually filmed in reshoots anyway because they turned out to be integral to the film (/foreheadslap): “In the original script, there was a much longer sequence at the end and one in London where the Wolfman is loose,” Johnston explains. ‘They were both cut to save money. We shot the film, put it together and it was immediately apparent why those sequences were in the story, and so we went back to shoot a bunch of new stuff for the end. We reshot other stuff as well. That has happened to me several times: you try and save money, and you say the movie will work without this, then you find something is lacking after you shoot, [and] you need to go back and do it.”
As for the ending, Johnson says he filmed and “enhanced” one of the two versions that was already in the script. “There were two versions of the ending [that] involved the fate of the Wolfman. When we went back to shoot the new stuff, we enhanced one, because our suspicion was it was going to be the more dynamic ending. So we shot new stuff for that, the B-version, which is now the version in the film.” Johnston goes on to clarify, “It was two versions of an ending. One was where one character died, and in the other version, the other character died. After our first preview it was clear we wanted the ending to go one way. We extended it, made it more rewarding.” Thus it’s not that much of a surprise that two sets of editors at one time were trying to make something salvageable out of a film that producer Scott Stuber said was “running long with all the extra footage.”
So let’s just summarize: Romanek left because he needed more time to shoot, more time which Johnston got anyway. Sequences from the original draft were cut to save money, only to be reinstated because they were made sense. And the ending was one of the versions that was being considered from Day 1 anyway.
As much as we like to rag on Johnston around here, any director brought in with only a few weeks before a film is set to shoot on a project this big is going to be forever chasing their tail. And that’s certainly not helped when your bosses aren’t exactly sure what they are looking for in the first place. We think Universal (naively) wanted to kick start a franchise on the cheap and got burned in the process. Had Romanek been given the extra shooting days he asked for, and been left to bring his vision to the screen, Universal could’ve saved themselves a lot of time, money and aggravation and probably would’ve had a better film in the can as a result.
Remember Hollywood, indecision is expensive.
(sigh) Frackin' Hollywood, man.
Well who knows if Romanek could have done much better man… I don't get all the love this guy gets.
"One Hour Photo" was an OK debut, but had many, many flaws, and was deeply overrated.
His music videos are fine, but hey, a music video is not a film.
Not saying he would't have done a good job, just saying he still needs to prove himself as a director.
Word from preproduction was that Romanek wasn't doing himself many favours by constantly changing designs and making random choices. In hindsight, it might not have made any difference whether he went or not but it could also have been far worse.
What a waste.
I've said this any number of times (think the two versions of Exorcist IV), but I can't understand why studios spent millions in extra cash to 'fix' a genre picture in the first place. Sure the film may have had issues, but instead of releasing it as is for $90 million, you spend two years tinkering, adding another $60 million to the budget (or enough to make a whole new movie) and end up with the same $30 million opening and $80-100 million gross you would have gotten in the first place.
I don't know why Mark Romanek gives you guys a collective boner. I didn't buy one minute of One Hour Photo – it was overwrought, poorly scripted, and obvious. A fifth generation xerox of Taxi Driver. Even the art direction, with its sanitized settings, made the film feel like it was directed by a poor man's Marc Forster film – and I hate Marc Forster's films.
I don't think Romanek is any better of a filmmaker than Johnston.
You guys might be giving Romanek too much credit. He apparently wanted the lead to turn into an actual wolf, which, as you know, makes perfect sense in a movie called Wolf-MAN. Word has it that he was impossible to work with, butting heads with the cast and that he spent far more time wanting to replicate period handbags on the extras than spend time working on the script. Stuff like that.
Basically, he did himself no favors.
first off, let me say that i know mark personally, though i haven't spoken to him since he wrapped on Never Let Me Go.
Universal totally pulled a fast one on him in the production of WolfMan; luring him in with absolute artistic control, only to throw the daunting of budget refinery on his back at last second.
he didn't want Benicio to turn into a 'wolf', jesus. the design you see in the film is what Romanek and Rick Baker spent 6 months designing. Romanek told Rick to "let go and go crazy with it".
you can thank Mark for wholeheartedly convincing the studio to keep it in the Victorian Age. you can thank Mark for the insertion of Gothic imagery and themes (unfortunately almost half or more is stripped from the final product).
as having seen the film with some co-workers, I can say that Mark's version would've blown this away. he wouldn't have used a crane to photograph the film, he wouldn't have used a horrid ending, and he certainly wouldn't have re-writes on set. Mark is usually very faithful to the script at hand, with some lenience towards Robin Williams improvising a tad on "One Hour Photo".
Mark was not upset when he left "WolfMan"; "Never Let Me Go" was a thread of the many reasons he left "WolfMan", and I can definitely say I'm glad he did. I'm sure by now you've read about Spike seeing some footage and his reaction.
I apologize if I come off demeaning, it's just that Mark worked very hard on this, and silly rumors like the above spread like wildfire on the internet.
-N
I agree with you Nikki, I talk to Rick Baker and he say that he wished that Romanek could stay.
BTW I love "One Hour Photo", is a creepy atmospheric cool film and his videos might not be films but still are more innovated then many films.
Romanek rules!