Shortly after Dave Elsey won the Saturn Award for Best Make-Up in X-Men: First Class (which he shared with Fran Needham and Conor O’Sullivan) I got to speak with him backstage.  We talked about what it was like to work on X-Men with Nicholas Hoult, what the Saturn Awards mean to him, new characters and other rumors for the upcoming sequel to X-Men: First Class, and more.   In addition, while I’d heard screenwriter David Hayter (X-Men, X2, Watchmen) was making his directorial debut with an original screenplay called Wolves, I didn’t know much about it.  But with Elsey doing the make-up, he revealed that casting has begun, it’s filming in Toronto, a stunt arranger who works with Jackie Chan has been brought onto the project, and he said:

“It’s very violent and bloody, but it’s less like The Wolfman and actually a lot more like an X-Men kind of movie.  It’s more of a kind of action movie.  Our werewolves…one of the big differences is our werewolves speak in this and they have hopes and dreams like anybody else.”

More after the jump.

With Super Bowl XLIV airing in a month (February 7, 2010), the list of advertisers who have bought spots has been revealed.  While the country is still in a recession and some may think paying almost $3 million for 30 seconds of airtime is crazy, the fact is…you’re going to get around 100 million people watching your commercial, and that’s an enormous amount of eyeballs.

So to try and raise awareness for this year’s biggest movies, Universal, Paramount and Walt Disney have all bought TV spots.  Universal and Disney have purchased one spot, while Paramount bought three.  Universal will probably show Robin Hood or Wolfman, Walt Disney might go with Alice in Wonderland, Toy Story 3 or Prince of Persia, but you don’t have to wonder about Paramount, as they’ll be showing Shutter Island, Iron Man 2 and The Last Airbender during the first and second quarters.  For fans of all these films, let’s hope some of these spots have new footage. (via adage.com)

Gene Simmons has updated his personal website with some interesting info. According to Gene, he has recorded the ‘howling’ voice for director Joe Johnston’s “Wolfman” movie. He also mentions that he “went up to Vox, where I was asked to do the voice of the Dragon Spirit in M. Night Shyamalan’s forthcoming Airbender movie. This may or may not come to fruition. We’ll see.” He goes on to say how much the “Wolfman” meant when he was growing up. It’s after the jump:

In a move that does not exactly trumpet confidence or swagger Universal has delayed the release of their high-profile “The Wolfman” until February of 2010.  Did I mention that the studio is having a bad summer?  The film starring Benecio Del Toro as the hirsute one was set to open on November 6 but, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the visual effects for the film will not be done on time.  Or maybe Universal doesn’t want to tempt fate in a year that has alternated between “Bruno” bad and “Land of the Lost” worse?  Naturally, the studio is playing up the positives of moving “Wolfman” to February 12^th – Hey!  It’s President’s Day weekend you know… and Valentine’s Day!