It is being reported by Baz Bamigboye at The Daily Mail that the The Wolfman has gone through a series of reshoots. The reason for this? Apparently, according to an unnamed actor working on the film, "the Wolf was on its heels and looked daft."

"Daft" = "silly" to you non-Brits out there...

The reshoots on The Wolfman are said to have taken six weeks in total, with director Joe Jonhston (Captain America) being involved, but most of the work being done by legendary stuntman-turned-second unit director, Vic Armstrong (who did stunt work on such films as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman and the classic werewolf movie, An American Werewolf in London). Armstrong's larger involvement in the reshoot is suppossedly because "Johnston has been back in LA for the past five weeks overseeing the special effects and computer-generated images."

With the type of film The Wolfman is - with the effects needing to be just right to show off the titled creature in action - I'm not surprised if Johnston has kept his attention firmly on that aspect...

As part of the reshoots, Armstrong reportedly came up with a great confrontation scene between the Wolfman and the Werewolf (there's a difference?): "They really go after each other and it's dramatic and exciting, whereas the stuff they shot first time round was limp." - Star Benicio Del Toro flew back to the UK to do the reshoots, and Emily Blunt is currently busy with Gulliver's Travels so she could only dedicate "three or four weekends." Anthony Hopkins for an unknown reason was unable to fly back to the UK, so he did his additional filming in LA instead.

Universal has officially confirmed that additional scenes were shot. Here's a comment from the actual studio themselves about it:

"The full articulation of the transformational lead character will be realized when the film is completed and we are excited to share his incredible look with the world in the upcoming trailer."

I really hope they've got their act together - they need to make Hopkins' L.A. scenes fit right with the UK ones. I'm sure our keen eyes will pick out any inconsistencies which may or may not be in the aforementioned trailer, when it eventually hits the net (which shouldn't be too far away, I would imagine).

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So, what does this news mean for the original Wolfman character design that was conceived by Rick Baker? A few months ago we got a look at some concept art that looked pretty bad ass as far as I could see (one of which is shown above). Perhaps it looked "daft" within the film's gothic-styled setting, or didn't look right during the action sequences.

Some of you film buffs out there may already know that Rick Baker was responsible for the makeup effects in An American Werewolf London (that's both the special effects makeup artist AND the stunt guy from that classic werewolf movie, also working on this one!). The effects Baker came up with are still jaw-dropping to witness even twenty-eight years later. Baker is still credited as the special makeup effects artist on The Wolfman, so here's hoping he had a hand in this reported new design.

What do you think about The Wolfman reshoots and the news of a different creature design? How would you like the Wolfman to look?

The Wolfman stars Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving, and is directed by Joe Johnston (The First Avenger: Captain America). It is slated for a release on November 6th, 2009.

Sources: TheDailyMail via /Film