A contemporary update of Dracula hasn't exactly been the ratings hit that NBC hoped for when it first gambled on Jonathan Rhys Meyers staying sober, but the network is already raiding its Universal parents’ video library for another classic monster it can give a sexy, primetime spin. This time it’s the long-rumored-for-a-reboot The Wolfman, officially described as a small-screen version of the studio’s 2010 film starring Benicio Del Toro, which was itself a remake of its 1941 film The Wolf Man, which was in turn based on the ancient folkloric myth of original ideas.
Like Dracula, The Wolfman—or as Deadline annoyingly stylizes it, The WolfMan, but fuck that—will be overseen by producer Daniel Knauf, whose original creation was the cultishly adored but canceled Carnivale, so you’re just getting vampire and werewolf shows from now on. (Though, to be fair, he also has an untitled, original soap opera in the works about an evil women’s club —“the true powers behind every throne” in Los Angeles—that won’t get half the attention.)
Like the movies it’s based on, it will focus on lycanthrope Larry Talbot, as he struggles with his primordial self from week to week, right after Grimm. Should The Wolfman and Dracula join NBC’s Jekyll And Hyde series Do No Harm in failing to attract an audience, NBC will pretty much be left with a sitcom play on Creature From The Black Lagoon (“The Ultimate Fish-Out-Of-Water Story!”), so maybe we should give this one a chance.