Josh-da-man

Jesus, that's real? It reads like something from The Onion.

wahlers

What a surprise! People who think an over-caffeinated geek-hero piece of crap like Scott Pilgrim is a good movie don't like a deliberately slow-paced moody, atmospheric film like Wolfman. Go figure.

majorjoe23

As a counterpoint, Scott Pilgrim is at 81% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Wolfman is at 33%.

Ash Ketchum

Universal has always been a schlocky studio. There was a period there in the 1930s when Carl Laemmle Jr., the studio head's son, tried to make prestige movies--they even had Irving Thalberg working there before he went over to MGM--and they even won a Best Picture Oscar for ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. But it was the horror films that kept them going in the early 1930s (FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA, THE MUMMY, THE INVISIBLE MAN) and when they were on the cusp of bankruptcy in 1937, teenage singing star Deanna Durbin saved the studio with a series of light musicals (e.g. 100 MEN AND A GIRL, MAD ABOUT MUSIC) that proved enormously popular. In the 1940s it was Abbott & Costello (BUCK PRIVATES, HOLD THAT GHOST, et al) and the team of Jon Hall and Maria Montez (ARABIAN NIGHTS, COBRA WOMAN, etc.) that kept the studio afloat.

And in the 1950s, it was more monster and sci-fi films (CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, TARANTULA, THIS ISLAND EARTH, etc.), Audie Murphy westerns, and low-budget swashbucklers with Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis that dominated the studio slate until Hudson and Curtis became big enough stars to carry bigger-budgeted product and Hudson began teaming with Douglas Sirk on one hand and Doris Day on the other. Douglas Sirk did most of his 1950s films at Universal and things like MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION and IMITATION OF LIFE were hugely popular but derided by critics, and only later became "classics."

And in the 1960s, Universal went into TV production big time, pioneering TV movies and longer-length series, e.g. "The Virginian," "Name of the Game." It was the last studio to have actors under contract, but they tended to be lower tier stars like George Peppard, Doug McClure, Michael Sarrazin, Rosemary Forsyth, and James Farentino. But at least they gave us some early Clint Eastwood starrers like COOGAN'S BLUFF, TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA, THE BEGUILED, and JOE KIDD, and his earliest directorial efforts, PLAY MISTY FOR ME, BREEZY and HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER. Of course, he soon switched over to Warner. (Eastwood had been under contract to Universal as a male starlet in the 1950s.)

And then in the 1970s there were the AIRPORT movies and, of course, they nurtured the career of the biggest schlockmeister of them all...Steven Spielberg! What was JAWS if not a high-end take on CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON?

wahlers

Because trendy, popular films have never disappeared from the public eye and unpopular films have never stood the test of time?

For amusement, people should look at Oscar winning films and see how many the average person even knows from previous decades and see how many fantastic films are not represented at all.

I'm just tired of people endlessly bashing films like Wolfman because it's so popular to do, instead of just giving it a chance or admitting that they just don't like the genre or the niche of the film itself. It wasn't a badly made film. It was a well-made film that was deliberately aiming for a particular mood that a lot of people just didn't care for. That doesn't make it a bad film.

GoldenJCJ

Me too. Sad that when I think of Universal I think of movies 25-30 years old. Heck, even Jurassic Park was almost 20 years ago.

I suppose Dreamworks was the worst thing to happen to Universal. When Spielberg left it just made their shittastic films all the more glaring now that there's no Spielberg films to hide behind.

majorjoe23

It's not like Wolfman was some untested product. It was a remake of a classic with name recognition. It had a fairly well-known star and strong supporting cast. It's in a genre that has done well and followed a string of remakes and reinventions of Universal monsters that had done well up to a point (The first two Mummy films, Van Helsing at least hit $100 million).

Despite all that it kind of sucked and didn't light up the box office. I don't see the Wolfman remake standing the test of time.

wahlers

Van Helsing was a steaming turd of a film. It had an abysmal story, terrible direction and was incorrectly marketed as being a love-song to Universal's classic monster movies in order to trick fans of those films into the box office. It had much more in common with Hammer films, which Universal doesn't own all of, so they didn't want to promote it that way.

The only people I personally know (not just people on the internet) who like the film are people who either want to sleep with (or be) Hugh Jackman or want to sleep with Kate Beckinsale. Box office receipts often reflect who many hard-ons a film gives people and not always the quality of the story.

I think there will be a devoted group of followers of The Wolfman as time goes along. Is it the greatest movie ever? Not by a longshot, but it deserves better than it gets. I highly suspect that a large percentage of the people who bash it on the internet have never even seen it.

The fact that some bitter geriatric from Universal is saying it was a bad movie isn't going to sway my opinion. He's probably just regurgitating what some secretary cobbled together from the internet in our to appease the public. I just think it's funny that he comes out with this interview because it's going to give him a better public opinion because he's being "honest". He's probably up for review again at Universal, and as he admits in the article, he pours on the bullshit to sweet-talk his way out of being fired. I'm sure it's what he's doing now, and I doubt that half of the opinions are really his.

Draven

I'll happily bash The Wolfman because it's a shitty movie. I love "monster movies," I like the actors, the production design and the effects are great. The movie itself? Total shit.

I've never discussed my dislike of that movie with anyone so it's not like I'm trying to be popular. I watched it, I hated it, end of discussion.

The Bus

It's clear that Universal is trying to do something different. Certainly, on paper, before you get into the details, Wolfman, Land of the Lost, Cowboys & Aliens works. (I liked C&A actually).

Universal gets credit for making the Bourne films, which are absolutely fantastic and essential action films of the modern era.

The Bus

Also, let's not forget these are Universal films:

Being John Malkovich
Blood Simple
Traffic
Wet Hot American Summer
Session 9
The Man Who Wasn't There
The Pianist
Swimming Pool
Lost in Translation
21 Grams
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Constant Gardener
Brick
Eastern Promises
Atonement
In Bruges
Burn After Reading
Milk
A Serious Man
The Kids Are All Right
The American
Hanna


Some of these are among my favorite films of the last decade.

Larry C.

This is cool and all but to come out a shit all over actors and name names is not professional. I'd be pissed if I was Del Toro.

Matthew Chmiel

With the exception of Blood Simple which has changed distributors every few years (and now resides with MGM), the rest of these films were produced by USA Films. In which Universal bought and it became ...

Quote:

The Pianist
Swimming Pool
Lost in Translation
21 Grams
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Constant Gardener
Brick
Eastern Promises
Atonement
In Bruges
Burn After Reading
Milk
A Serious Man
The Kids Are All Right
The American
Hanna

... FOCUS FEATURES! Congratulations, you named films that have not a single thing to do with Universal other than they're all owned by parent company NBC Universal! Thanks for playing, here's your parting gifts.