I was trying to come up with an analogy for Hollywood’s annoying tendency to find something that makes money then beat it into the ground until it’s beyond predictable and over-processed. There’s nothing as annoying though. When The Dark Knight made billions, studios decided that all superhero movies should be gritty. When Twilight doubled its budget in a weekend, studios bought up every vampire franchise possible. And now that New Moon has done the same, it seems that wolves are next.
According to Variety, producers Joel Kastelberg and Etchie Stroh are making plans to reboot the Howling series, an 80s horror franchise based on a novel about a newscaster who is stalked by a werewolf. The mildly popular original movie spawned six sequels, including one entitled The Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch. Seriously. The producing pair has signed on Joe Nimziki to direct and write.
Of course, this sounds like more of an attempt to jump on the horror film remake bandwagon than the New Moon werewolf bandwagon, but who says you can’t jump on two bandwagons? Either these guys knew they ahead of time that they were picking up a series that would conveniently piggyback on the tween sensation, or they’re two of the luckiest producers around. Now they just need to find themselves a Taylor Lautner.
