Dining last night with some friends, including one in the know, there was some information gleaned about The Wolf Man, the Andrew Kevin Walker-scripted project, starring Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt, from which director Mark Romanek walked away. While he indeed quit over budget concerns and considerations (he refused to commit to a production kitty that had already ballooned from $100 million to around $120 million-plus), Romanek was also on the verge of being fired before he chose to walk. Universal called in the director over the weekend several weeks back, in a last-ditch, ass-covering effort to get him to toe the line; by quitting, he voided his contract, and made things a lot easier.

Jurassic Park III and October Sky helmer Joe Johnston has already officially been tapped as The Wolf Man‘s new director, as announced by Variety last week, but this after both Brett Ratner (who of course jumped into the driver’s seat on X-Men: The Last Stand when Bryan Singer abandoned the franchise he originated to take the reigns on Superman Returns) and Frank Darabont (who most recently directed The Mist, an adaptation of Stephen King’s source text of the same name) were each given hearty consideration. One of those names is entirely expected, one decidedly less so, in my opinion…