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After treading over the sacred blood-soaked ground of Nosferatu with his take, director Robert Eggers has his sights on delivering a different kind of beast in his next movie, Werwulf. One that, according to his go-to cinematographer, Jarin Blaschke, will be a werewolf that has never appeared on camera until now.
“Yeah, we’re doing it now,” Blaschke told Den of Geek. “I can’t tell you a thing. But it’s something that’s not been done before that I’m aware of or not done in this way. So [we’re] just going to test it and see if it works.” Just like Nosferatu, though, Eggers will undoubtedly have a job on his hands in following the terrifying footsteps of a beloved movie monster. Unlike vampires on the big and small screen, werewolves have gone through various wonderful and equally woeful transformations that have had audiences howling at the moon for good and bad reasons.
To think of this legendary change from man to beast is to picture the iconic David Naughton screaming the house down in American Werewolf in London. From there, various lycanthropes have burst onto the screen differently, the most recent being Leigh Whannel’s The Wolf Man. That iteration tried to reinvent the furry wheel and did a daring job, too, particularly from the illuminated first-person perspective.
Whatever Eggers’ iteration will look like, it’s safe to say there will be a great deal of authenticity from the era in which the monster dwells, which in this case is the 13th century. With all of the director’s previous projects, he’s researched deeply the time zone in which the stories are set. The results have always ended up being engrossing displays that both he and Blaschke have brought to life so wonderfully, from Transylvanian castles to a New England lighthouse by the sea. However, for now, Blaschke suggests there’s still some work to be done. “We’re still figuring it out, and I can’t talk about it, [but] the primary candidate has not been done before.”
There are going to be many full moons until Werwulf arrives in theatres on Christmas Day, 2026. In the meantime, Eggers will have other monsters to face as he crafts his long-rumored sequel to the cult classic Labyrinth, which he’ll be both writing and directing. He shouldn’t have to search for an idea, though, as our own Megan Garside has the perfect nightmarish story pitch in mind right here.