How Werewolf By Night Sets Up The Horror Corner of the MCU
Some projects from Marvel Studios, say Sam Raimi's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, have dabbled in the art of horror. Then 14 years after the Marvel Cinematic Universe was first established, along came Werewolf by Night, the franchise's first bonafide attempt at the genre. A Halloween special, Werewolf by Night was developed specifically as a horror property, an homage to the Universal Monster and Hammer Horror movies of the early 20th century. As such, the hour-long special introduced MCU fans to an entirely new corner of the comic book world previously unexplored.
As the opening moments of the special explain, monsters have been a part of the franchise since the beginning of time, only they've been kept at bay by monsters such as Ulysses Bloodstone and his group of hunters. Thanks to Werewolf by Night, monsters may now be a huge part of the MCU moving forward.
Throughout the special, the world's leading monster hunters are killed off one by one, either because of Man-Thing or the primal rage of Jack Russell (Gael Garcia Bernal). Because the best hunters in the game have now been murdered—including what appears to be the remaining members of the Bloodstone family outside of Elsa—that stands to reason monsters may have a chance to come into the public eye now.
What other Marvel monsters could show up?
Interestingly enough, the three main characters of Werewolf by Night have often been associated with Marvel's Legion of Monsters. At various points throughout its history, Werewolf by Night, Elsa Bloodstone, and Man-Thing have each found themselves a part of the team, potentially signaling the group's live-action arrival at some point in the near future. Other members of the team throughout the years include Manphibian, Morbius, the Living Mummy, Ghost Rider, and Satana.
Where will Werewolf by Night show up next?
So far, no future appearances by any of the Werewolf by Night characters has been confirmed by Marvel Studios. Laura Donnelly (Elsa Bloodstone) told us earlier this month that whatever the case, she has a good feeling about her future in the franchise.
"I would love to be able to delve more into her background going forward and I did do all of that, the reading and the research," Donnelly previously told ComicBook.com "I read Nextwave and I read her one-shot novel and things like that to get an idea of it and then I discussed with Michael [Giacchino], our director, how much of that we were keeping as truth for her character and how much we hadn't decided on yet and things like that. So yeah, there's a lot of her background I think that stays true, but not all of it, and we find Elsa in a moment, where she has been away from her family and she has been kind of disengaged from that whole world, that her father brought her up in and now she's coming back into it for the first time. So for me, that was so much more of an interesting way to be able to see that character for the first time as she's coming back into a situation, particularly one that makes her very uncomfortable and in which she doesn't know, in the context, she doesn't really know who she is or where she belongs anymore. So that for me made it really interesting."
Werewolf by Night is now streaming on Disney+. What other characters do you think should get a similar special? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!