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Romanek was heavily involved with pre-production, only to suddenly leave the film in January 2008. While the usual “creative differences” were cited, Romanek spoke to Time Out after the film was released, saying, “It wasn’t coming together where we were all wanting to make the same film. I wasn’t able to bring to it what I thought I could. It’s a big investment, and a big project, and I felt they should have a director who’s more in line with what they want.” On being a “big investment” and “big project,” the nitty gritty of it apparently comes down to a disagreement about the production budget and the shooting schedule, with Romanek feeling that with the script they had he was unable to shoot the film in just 80 days.

A month after Romanek left, Joe Johnston was hired by Universal. He had just three weeks to get comfortable before principal photography was to commence. Feeling he could shoot the film in the allotted time frame, he brought David Self in to do a rewrite on the script. However, the rewrite resulted in 17 extra pages. It didn’t matter how much Red Bull they were drinking; shooting the film in 80 days just wasn’t going to happen. The release date was then changed to April 2009 to accommodate the additional scenes.

“How do you prepare for a film when you’re hired three weeks before shooting?” said Johnston to Empire Magazine. “There’s no way you can make sure everything is working, but I just took it one day at a time…in a way, that forces you to trust your instincts.” Anthony Hopkins actually hailed Johnston as, “the best director I’ve worked with for many years.” Given the task Johnston had before him, Hopkins said, “He made it very easy for everyone, and that’s tough considering how much he’s had on his plate. He came in with little preparation and had to take on an elephant of a film, and there has not been a hair out of place.”

Just when it looked like everything was coming together, from December 2008 the film underwent six weeks of reshoots. Apparently some scenes with Del Toro in full-on Wolfman-mode just didn’t look right, because he looked a bit silly walking on two legs. So they reshot them to have him walking on all fours instead. Extra scenes were also shot, but the two main additions included an action sequence with the Wolfman rampaging across London, and an extended ending that added a bit more clarity. Johnston said the two sequences were originally removed from the script to save money, and upon watching the film without them, “it was immediately apparent why those sequences were in the story.” While Del Toro and Blunt were able to make time for the reshoots, Hopkins was unable to fly back to the UK, so had to film his scenes in the US. It’s worth noting that Hopkins’ hair appears to change midway through the movie. The film was now pushed back to November 2009.

During the summer of 2009, the film was then pushed back one final time to February 2010. According to producer Scott Stuber, this was done so that they could polish up the visual effects, though trying to avoid the release of A Christmas Carol, 2012 and Twilight: New Moon probably played a part as well.

The production budget for The Wolfman initially began at $85 million. Because of the reshoots it spiralled up to $150 million. The film opened in the US on February 12, 2010 alongside two other wide releases, Valentine’s Day and Percy Jackson. The Wolfman opened at #2 (behind Valentine’s Day) with a reasonable opening weekend of $31.4 million. It didn’t take long for the negative reviews and word-of-mouth to take their toll, for the following weekend it tumbled hard, dropping 68% and moving down to #5 with a take of $9.8 million. By the fourth week, it was out of the top ten. The film managed to accumulate just $61.9 million at the US box office. Overseas it took $77.8 million, amounting to an overall total of $139.7 million. Oh dear. As a consolation, the film deservedly won an Oscar for its make-up.

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