As Tracy Morgan once put it on "30 Rock" in a song that's still stuck in my head 15 years later: "Spooky scary! Boys becoming men! Men becoming wolves!" Marvel's Halloween special "Werewolf by Night" might not have a werewolf bar mitzvah, but it's still set to offer up some spooky scary wolfman vibes just in time for Halloween. The first-ever footage from the new special just dropped at Disney's D23 Expo today, and /Film's Ethan Anderton was there to catch the sneak preview.
Watch The Trailer For Werewolf By Night
"Werewolf by Night" is one of the more intriguing Marvel projects on the horizon because, as a holiday special, it serves a function the studio largely hasn't tried to fill before. Will it simply be a fun one-off, or will it introduce characters who will be integral to Phase 5 of the studio's seemingly endless superhero saga? The supernatural character would pair well with Marvel's upcoming "Blade" remake, for example.
While the special will likely keep some secrets until its autumn debut, its cast and crew have been announced. "Y Tu Mamá También" and "Old" and Gael García Bernal is set to star as Jack Russell according to IMDb, with "The Nevers" actor Laura Donnelly also among the cast. Famed composer Michael Giacchino, who has also helmed an episode of "Star Trek: Short Treks," will direct the special.
Two characters have actually been the titular werewolf in "Werewolf by Night" in the years since the comic arc first debuted in 1972. One character, Jack Russell (like the terrier), is a cursed descendent of Transylvanian lycanthropes who had a beef with Dracula. The other, Jake Gomez, appeared more recently in a 2020 arc and is a Hopi Native American teenage hero.
Regardless of which story the Disney+ version of "Werewolf by Night" digs into, the characters offer plenty of opportunities to connect back to the larger MCU if Marvel decides to go in that direction. Jack's plot, for example, involves the Darkhold, the same text at the center of "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." And even if this truly is just a fun, spooky one-off, I can think of fewer things that sound more entertaining than a Halloween special that sees Gael García Bernal go full werewolf.
"Werewolf by Night" debuts on Disney+ this fall.
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