[Director] Joe Johnston may be building up the impetus of anti-CGI feeling started by Quentin Tarantino - whose action-packed Death Proof is said to be CGI-free - by deciding that his much-anticipated The Wolf Man has eschewed the render-farm for the more traditional talents of six-time Oscar-winning make-up wizard Rick Baker.
As a bonus, there’s a post-article link to a Den Of Geeks list of the Top 10 Movie Werewolves.
While browsing a back issue of Smashing Magazine, I came across a YouTube video of illustrator Chris Scalf painting a rather awesome werewolf. He recorded his Photoshop / Intuos tablet wizardy in accelerated time-lapse for our viewing pleasure:
You can see the finished piece here. New desktop background!
Empire Magazine has just done a great interview with Scott Stuber, producer of The Wolf Man. I was going to write a bit of commentary on Stuber’s very encouraging remarks, but he says so many positive things that I’d wind up essentially reprinting the whole interview here. Suffice it to say, there’s a lot of positive talk about Benicio Del Toro’s enthusiasm. the careful way in which they’ve expanded the story, and Rick Baker’s work on the Wolf Man makeup (no CG effects!).
On Benicio’s involvement:
Benicio’s a huge Wolfman fan. He’s kind of the origin of this thing. The Wolfman is one of his favourite movies of all time – he’s got Wolfman memorabilia all over his house. He’s just someone who has a real passion for this.
Does the world really need another game that takes place in World War II? Probably not. But what if the ranks of Hitler’s armies were bolstered by vampires, zombies and werewolves? That’s the premise of Operation: Darkness, a forthcoming game for the Xbox 360. From IGN.com:
Operation Darkness puts you in command of a British Special Forces squad during World War II that has been tasked with taking out the Nazis and Hitler while fighting a host of supernatural characters like zombies, skeletons, vampires, werewolves, and even dragons.
To me, this concept sounds more lazy than it does interesting, particularly after taking a look at the lackluster graphics and gameplay at the game’s official web site. I think I’ll stick with my Wii, thanks.
Two promotional images of Benicio Del Toro in full “Wolf Man” makeup were recently released to the public. What we’re looking at here is the work of special effects legend Rick Baker, who also crafted some very fine werewolf effects for the short-lived Werewolf TV series and, more famously, the werewolf transformation effects in An American Werewolf In London.
The results of Baker & Co.’s work is certainly more “wolf + man” than “werewolf”, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Lookin’ good, Benicio.
Thanks to some covert setphotos and a leaked effects concept photo, rumours have beencirculating that the as-of-yet untitled sequel to the X-Files movie will feature a werewolf, and that the lycanthrope in question is Fox Mulder. Unfortunately, the veracity of these claims has been called into question with the maddening counter-rumour that we’re all purposely being faked out by the film’s creators.
There is speculation that the film’s producers (specifically Chris Carter) leaked this material deliberately, just to mess with eager fans, many of whom are just as inclined as Mulder to over-analyze evidence in an effort to believe in the impossible (or extremely unlikely). To further muddy the waters, Carter and the film’s writer Frank Spotnitz would neither confirm nor deny the presence of werewolves in the film at an interview at WonderCon last month.
Further deflating the werewolf rumours is the news that the concept photo of Mulder as a werewolf is actually a Photoshopped version of this advertisement. This in itself doesn’t mean that the effects concept is a fake, but it does prove that the werewolf features were digitally added. This doesn’t bode well for a production that is apparently keeping CG-based effects to an absolute minimum.
Whatever the case, despite all the fakery and mind games many people (including myself) are holding onto the hope that this X-Files 2 werewolf business is real.
