We have absolutely no basis for this belief, but we like to think that Universal Pictures chose a replacement director for Mark Romanek on The Wolf Man by gathering its shortlistees in a room and pitting them against each other in a vicious thumb war. If that is indeed the case, it's Joe Johnston who emerged victorious, with other reported contenders Brett Ratner, Frank Darabont and James Mangold nursing bruised digits and telling people that they didn't really want the job anyway.
Johnston's got a history of delivering reasonably successful big-action films, including Jumanji, Jurassic Park III and Hidalgo. He'll now step right onto the set of The Wolf Man, which is almost ready to shoot here in the UK and has its cast in place (Benicio Del Toro in the title role, Anthony Hopkins as his father and Emily Blunt as his love interest).
So what does everyone think now that the dust has settled? On the bright side, Wolf Man will go ahead, and without Brett Ratner in charge as many (including us) feared. And with Romanek having seen the film all the way through pre-production, it's likely that much of his reportedly character-based plot will survive. On the down side, Darabont would've been our pick.