[Video] Werewolf By Night Director Explains Why Gael Garcia Bernal Is Perfect For Marvel’s Gruesome Horror Special

Based on a character first introduced in Marvel Comics in 1972, Werewolf by Night stars Gael Garcia Bernal stars as Jack Russell, a monster hunter invited to compete with fellow “death dealers” — including The Nevers’ Laura Donnelly — for a supernatural relic called Bloodstone.

Here’s the thing: Jack is harbouring a big secret (pssst, it’s in the title.) Up’s Oscar-feted composer Michael Giacchino pulls a double shift as tunesmith and director of this Halloween-timed ‘Special Presentation’, a standalone that’s not linked to the larger, increasingly convoluted Marvel Cinematic Universe. (What a relief!) Here’s the bad news, sorta — it’s too darn brief!

Filmed like a 1930s Universal Monster Classic (replete with retro ‘cigarette burn’ cues), WBN clocks in at 52 minutes: it feels like either a pilot or the climactic act of a longer feature. It’s tasty, but not very filling, just a few notches short of being a howling good time. The mayhem is pretty gruesome, though (by MCU standards at least), even if the splatter is concealed in the shadows of the gorgeous B&W photography. Still counts, right?

In a recent Zoom interview with Giacchino — a Marvel veteran behind Doctor Strange, Spider-Man: Homecoming and its sequels, and the 2016 iteration of the Marvel Studios logo fanfare — we asked him why Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige approached him to do Werewolf by Night and what makes Gael Garcia Bernal the perfect lead for the macabre adventure. 

Werewolf By Night is now streaming on Disney+.Watch more interviews on meWATCH and Mediacorp YouTube Channel.

Photo: Disney+