It should have been a classic: beautifully shot, with Oscar-winning prosthetic FX make-up by Rick Baker, and Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins in roles originally played by Lon Chaney Jr and Claude Raines. Sadly though, the well-documented production problems thoroughly did for The Wolfman, which is why Universal seem to be drawing a line under the whole sorry affair and starting again. The Werewolf has just picked up a director in Louis Morneau.

The project did begin life as a straight-up Wolfman sequel, but Michael Tabb's script is now being reworked into a stand-alone movie. It took Universal a couple of attempts to nail a werewolf movie the first time around too: The Wolf Man was one of the later horror icons added to its pantheon in 1941, and itself ignored 1936's Werewolf of London (not to be confused with An American Werewolf in London, which has its own remake percolating).

The fact that this is coming together under Universal's Family and Home Entertainment division should probably provide a clue as to the nature of the latest project though, as might the director himself: a Roger Corman veteran whose previous works include Bats, The Hitcher 2, and Roadkill 2.

Yup, it looks like we're in the scary world of DTV, and that assumption is borne out by the speed at which the production's moving. Casting is getting underway imminently, with shooting pencilled in for the autumn.

The Wolfman follow-up we really want to see is the further adventures of Hugo Weaving's Inspector Aberline. Somebody get on that please.