Since the two movies share a director, it is reasonable for viewers to wonder whether 2020’s The Invisible Man and 2025’s Wolf Man are canonically linked. 2025’s Wolf Man reboot sees Poor Things supporting star Christopher Abbott play Blake, an unfortunate father who has a run-in with a werewolf after moving into his childhood home with his wife and daughter. A reboot of 1941’s The Wolf Man, 2025’s Wolf Man is a straightforward contemporary horror retelling of the iconic story and the latest addition to Universal’s complex, ever-shifting Dark Universe project.
Beginning with Tom Cruise’s 2017 flop The Mummy, the Dark Universe was intended to be a series of Universal movie reboots that built a fictional universe around the studio’s iconic movie monsters. The Mummy was set to be followed by a Frankenstein reboot starring Javier Bardem, a Bride of Frankenstein movie starring Angelina Jolie, and Elizabeth Banks’ take on The Invisible Woman. When The Mummy flopped, the Dark Universe plans were altered and the studio began focusing on standalone, lower-budget horror reboots like 2020’s The Invisible Man. This psychological horror was a critically acclaimed hit upon release.
2025’s Wolf Man Is Not Directly Connected To 2020’s The Invisible Man
The Invisible Man And The Wolf Man Don’t Share The Same Fictional Universe
Although 2025’s Wolf Man shares the same tone and style as The Invisible Man since it is a dark psychological horror that re-imagines a classic Universal monster movie, 2025’s Wolf Man and 2020’s The Invisible Man are not canonically connected. They are both remakes of Universal Monster movies, but they do not exist in the same universe. Instead, Wolf Man is intended to be viewed as a standalone horror movie with no links to earlier releases, including existing Dark Universe movies. This approach was best explained by Wolf Man producer producer Ken Kao in a ScreenRant interview.
Wolf Man centers on the body horror of the main character’s transformation, whereas The Invisible Man focuses on the heroine’s isolation as she is pursued by her abusive ex.
Kao explained that Wolf Man’s connection to the rest of the Dark Universe was “More like the Joker approach” than the MCU, implying that the movies existed in their own distinct fictional universes. Moreover, there are not as many similarities between the two as there initially appear to be. Although both are contemporary psychological horror movies, Wolf Man centers on the body horror of the main character’s transformation, whereas The Invisible Man focuses on the heroine’s isolation as she is pursued by her abusive ex. Thus, the two movies have different thematic preoccupations and approaches to their stories.
Wolf Man Does Have A Connection To The Invisible Man
Saw Writer Leigh Whannell Directed Both The Invisible Man And The Wolf Man
That said, there are many reasons viewers might ᴀssume The Invisible Man and Wolf Man are linked. The two movies are both from Universal/Blumhouse, and both are directed by Saw screenwriter Leigh Whannell. As such, the two movies have some stylistic similarities, from their grey and blue color palettes to their dour, bleak tones. However, The Invisible Man’s тιтular threat is an external force, whereas Wolf Man’s central tragedy is the protagonist himself becoming a monster. As such, Wolf Man and The Invisible Man have very different stories, even if both do see Whannell tackle themes of masculinity in horror.
Source: ScreenRant
