'Wolf Man' Director Makes Baffling Decision To Abandon Project

By Katey Rich

Even with the well of projects ready to start production drying up thanks to the writer's strike, Universal's The Wolf Man has been good to go. Now the project's director, Mark Romanek, has dropped out, leaving stars Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt hanging and the project itself in limbo. It's the second time Universal has seen a project stumble like this in recent months, as Variety points out; there was a scramble late last year when Brad Pitt and Edward Norton dropped out of the big-budget adaptation of the British TV miniseries "State of Play." Their roles were recast, with Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck respectively, but you imagine it was a nasty couple of days over there.

Romanek's departure has been attributed to "creative differences," which would mean pretty much anything. But as one "insider" noted on Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood, "He just blew the chance of a lifetime." Romanek's only major feature film to this point was One Hour Photo, the tiny, dark and very good drama starring Robin Williams as a slightly-deranged photo shop clerk. He had a long career in music videos before then, including directing the video for Johnny Cash's cover of the Nine Inch Nails song "Hurt." Wolf Man, clearly, was going to be an entirely different direction for him.

But how many directors have gone from obscurity to directing a big-budget movie and had it fail them? Peter Jackson is the primary example of making the leap to the big time with one project, but how about Sam Raimi or Bryan Singer, who can pretty much do whatever they want thanks to their massively successful superhero movies? And in a world where Spider-Man mopes while swinging from building to building and even Paul Thomas Anderson is calling There Will Be Blood a "horror movie," directing a genre picture doesn't mean making one with all plot and no soul. Granted, a newcomer handed a $100 million budget wouldn't just get to run away and do whatever he wants, but if Romanek is as canny as his earlier work demonstrates, there's plenty there to work with. Plus he's got Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins in his cast-- there are many, many places you can go from there.

My bet? Script problems. I know that's been the boogeyman of every casting change since the strike began, but it's otherwise inconceivable that a man with everything to gain would drop out of this kind of project. We'll probably never hear the full story, since I imagine there are 10 lesser-known directors knocking down doors at Universal this very moment.Will the studios fess up that script problems are destroying their biggest projects? Given how negotiations seem to remain at a standstill, they'd likely rather die.

Wolf Man will be OK, unless del Toro for some reason bails as well. As for Mark Romanek, he may just be another unintended victim of this never-ending strike.