Producer Brian Gay Interview: Werewolf by Night

The world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is getting darker with Werewolf by Night. The Disney+ special centers on Jack Russell, a man afflicted with the curse that turns him into the blood-hungry titular creature that still retains his human intellect.

Gael García Bernal is leading the cast of Werewolf by Night alongside Laura Donnelly, Harriet Sansom Harris, Al Hamacher, Eugenie Bondurant, Kirk Thatcher, Leonardo Nam, and Daniel J. Watts.

Ahead of the special’s premiere, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with producer Brian Gay to discuss Werewolf by Night, the MCU’s expansion into the supernatural, future character plans, and more.

Producer Talks Werewolf by Night

Screen Rant: I’m very excited to talk about Werewolf by Night. It has been one of my most-anticipated MCU projects in a while alongside Blade, because I’m very much a horror genre fan. What has that been like to build up that horror roster for the MCU of late?

Brian Gay: It’s very fun, if I’m just being completely honest. Because these are movies that we know and love. Specifically with Werewolf by Night, we looked at the classic movies of the ‘30s and ‘40s; the monster movies. These were things that we enjoyed watching either growing up on a Saturday afternoon or in school or whatnot. It felt like, “Well, they did it, we love them, can we make a love letter to these styles of movies.”

The benefit of Marvel is that we have a whole cast of characters that we can look through the comics and say, “Well, what would apply?” “Werewolf by Night?” “Great, we love Werewolf by Night.” Michael Giacchino came to us and was like, “What about this character?,” like, “We love it, let’s do it!” It became this thing of, naturally, when the story and the ideas fit together, it just syncs.

What I love about this special is how gruesome it gets as it goes on. Michael said he hadn’t heard any kind of pushback from the studio, but were there any reservations when you saw early footage of, “This might be going a little too far”?

Brian Gay: No, and the reason is, it’s all in the story that we’re telling. I like to say that with Marvel Studios, in particular, we try and either put a genre or spin on each one of our shows or movies, like She-Hulk is definitely an amazing comedy that has that workplace bend with the lawyer to it. But that’s different than Loki, which has more of a sci-fi approach. For us, we knew what we wanted to do with this, and we knew that that sort of action and whatnot is part of the storytelling and what it is. You don’t put together a group of the most dangerous monster hunters in the world and expect them to have tea and sit down and not hunt or kill. So part of that is we knew going in, we’re like, “Well, let’s lean into it. Let’s make this the homage that we want it to be.”

A lot of audiences expect there to be crossovers and whatnot, and it’s amazing how self-contained the story feels. Were there any discussions about possibly including more ties to the larger MCU as this was in development?

Brian Gay: For this, it’s a special presentation, which is a bit of a new format for us. It’s supposed to be a short, it’s supposed to give you — I’ve been calling it an appetizer — basically a taste of either a different story or a different area of the universe. So for this, you know better than anyone, the MCU, we’ve got aliens, we’ve got superheroes, we’ve got other dimensions, we’ve got all sorts of things. The idea with this special is that, “Well, if you look in that corner, it’s kind of shadowy and dark down there, and what happens if you peek back behind that,” and you start to see that there’s a world of monsters underneath all of this.

That was the idea that we wanted to set up this concept that, “Hey, everything that you thought you knew, there was even a layer that you had no idea about.” So, we want to introduce Jack, and Elsa and all these other characters as part of a world that just makes the MCU feel even bigger.

Nothing is ever introduced in the MCU without any plan, even 15 years later. I know you can’t give me any details, per se, but are there future plans for Elsa and Jack and Man-Thing after this?

Brian Gay: Well, you’ve seen the special, right?

Oh, yeah.

Brian Gay: I figured, but I just wanted to double-check. What I will say is we put it at the end that both Jack and Elsa are totally changed, and in a space that they did not expect to find themselves in. I would love to see them both pop up, but I’m gonna be honest with you. You saw Jack; I don’t think he knows where he’s going tomorrow, and I don’t know that he has a grand plan of what to do next.

With that in mind, I’m excited, and I hope that we will see them again, but I don’t know that either of those characters yet knows exactly where their path is leading. I think this is just the beginning to set you up and make you wonder what’s gonna happen with Jack and Elsa, and I’m wondering the same thing.

About Werewolf by Night

On a dark and somber night, a secret cabal of monster hunters emerge from the shadows and gather at the foreboding Bloodstone Temple following the death of their leader. In a strange and macabre memorial to the leader’s life, the attendees are thrust into a mysterious and deadly competition for a powerful relic—a hunt that will ultimately bring them face to face with a dangerous monster. Inspired by horror films of the 1930s and 1940s, the chilling special aims to evoke a sense of dread and the macabre, with plenty of suspense and scares along the way as we explore a new corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Check out our other Werewolf By Night interviews as well:

• Michael Giacchino
• Laura Donnelly
• The Cast At D23