Granted, remakes are the spawn of Satan. And remaking one of the last great monster movies from the golden age, 1941's "The Wolf Man", which had Claude Rains, Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. as the The Wolf Man, sounds like the recipe for a bad Rogaine commercial. What possible secret sauce could transform this from a tepid bowl of remake-mania slop into film geek ecstasy? Some Benicio Del Toro probably goes a long way.

The man has acting chops to spare. He can go from Chinese/Jewish/Puerto Rican hustler to Samoan lawyer in 3 seconds flat. And just look at him! If ever a face was meant to lift towards a full moon, starlet-blood dripping from scarlet fangs, and howl, this is it!

Universal Pictures, which owns the underlying rights to the character, has signed Del Toro for the lead role. He will also be producing, along with Scott Stuber, Rick Yorn and Mary Parent, while the writer of "Se7en" and "Sleepy Hollow", Andrew Kevin Walker, will be doing the screenplay.

Variety reported on the plans for the film in March of last year.

Just make that Jessica Alba
and the dress a bit more
sheer. Voila! Movie magic!

Like the 1941 original that starred Lon Chaney Jr., new pic will be set in Victorian England. Del Toro will play a man who returns from America to his ancestral homeland, gets bitten by a werewolf and begins a hairy moonlight existence.

Deal came out of a series of meetings with the producers, Walker and Del Toro, who collects Wolf Man memorabilia.

Walker spent several months working on some frightening new twists to a familiar tale, adding several characters and plot points that take advantage of cutting-edge visual effects technology.

Walker will turn in his first draft by the spring, and the producers and studio are optimistic that "The Wolf Man" will shoot early in 2007, after Del Toro completes "Guerrilla," the Che Guevara film being directed by Steven Soderbergh.

Strangely enough, and flying in the face of all tradition, that schedule is still close to valid. The latest news on the project, from Hollywood Reporter, is that Mark Romanek has signed on to direct.

The movie will hew to the period pedigree of the 1941 original, in which a man returns from the U.S. to his ancestral home in Victorian-era Great Britain, gets bitten by a werewolf and begins a hairy moonlight existence.
[...]
A fall start is being planned.

Romanek's feature credits are thin on the ground. But anyone who's seen his work in music videos, such as the emotionally wrenching masterpice illustrating Johnny Cash's NIN cover "Hurt", could have little doubt as to his gift for conjuring images.