It seems that the curse of the wolf has extended to the production too. The remake of the 1941 horror flick The Wolf Man ran into recent trouble with director Mark Romanek quitting just weeks before shooting, due to “creative differences”. Romanek is mostly known for his stylish music videos, but also directed the chiller One Hour Photo. Hollywood Reporter has reported that the replacement could be either Brett Ratner, Frank Darabont, James Mangold, or Joe Johnston, with Ratner being the most likely.

Ratner has directed films like the Rush Hour trilogy, the drab Red Dragon, and X-Men 3, which seemed to send every fanboy into a tizzy with its rushed storytelling. In fact, Harry Knowles, mogul of Ain’t It Cool News, has posted a well-written rant to Universal reasoning with them to drop Ratner like a sack of bricks. On Ratner Harry writes: “[his films] are empty- hollow works. He’s a terrible actor’s director”.

The Wolf Man tells the tale of a young man returning to his homeland (originally the “wild” lands of Wales) to reunite with his father. Sadly, he gets bitten by a wolf and is cursed to roam the nights as a wolfman. Benicio Del Toro is well cast as the protagonist. The make-up crew will save on prosthetic hair. Anthony Hopkins will play the father.  The film is due out in 2009.