New Details on Marvel’s Werewolf Halloween Special; Featuring Blade?
Marvel Studios’ upcoming werewolf Halloween special for Disney+ is set to begin filming this month, as new details on the project are starting to emerge.
As most recently reported, The Batman and Spider-Man: No Way Home composer Michael Giacchino will direct the Halloween Special, which is rumored to be based on the Marvel comic book series Werewolf By Night. A new story from The Hollywood Reporter, however, states that the project will not be titled Werewolf By Night, also revealing that it will be a one-hour special, and not a feature-length film or limited series, as all of Marvel’s previous MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) releases have been.
The fact that it will not be titled specifically after the Werewolf By Night character(s) suggests something that I have hoped for since news of this Halloween Special first broke: Maybe we get a new Halloween Special every October, each one focusing on different dark characters from Marvel’s vast assortment of horror-themed heroes and villains. The annual Halloween Specials on Disney+ would give Marvel the perfect anthology-style platform from which to launch countless creatures of the night, both good and bad.
Even more exciting, a report this week from The Cosmic Circus claims to have insider information from multiple sources that Marvel’s human-vampire hybrid monster hunter Blade will appear in the untitled Halloween Special. Marvel has already announced that a new Blade movie is eventually coming, starring Mahershala Ali, in the title role, following a voice cameo tease in Eternals.
Filming of the werewolf Halloween Special is set to begin this month in Atlanta, Georgia.
Gael GarcÃa Bernal (Coco) set to lead the cast of the werewolf-focused show, which reportedly “could” be based on the Marvel comic series Werewolf by Night. Laura Donnelly (The Nevers) joins Bernal in the Disney+ Halloween special, possibly playing Nina Price, another Marvel comics character who becomes Vampire by Night.
The first character known as Werewolf by Night was Jack Russell, created by Gerry Conway and Mike Ploog based on concepts by Stan Lee and Roy Thomas, who first appeared in a 1972 issue of Marvel Spotlight and later starred in a Werewolf by Night series that ran for 43 issues ending in 1977. Russell is a descendant Lycanthropes.
Marvel introduced a second version of the character, Jake Gomez, in the 2020 Werewolf by Night (Vol. 3) #1. This iteration of the character is a member of the Hopi Native American tribe, whose family has been cursed with lycanthropy, and he clashes with a nefarious pharmaceutical company exploiting members of the tribe.
We’ll have to wait and see which version of the character (if any) will be the inspiration for the new Halloween special.
Nina Price is the niece of character Jack Russell/Werewolf by Night and she is a vampire/werewolf hybrid, who carried the lycan gene and was changed further after being bitten by a vampire.
It is also worth noting that the Marvel character Moon Knight, who is getting his own Disney+ series starring Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), which premieres on March 30, also debuted within the pages of Werewolf by Night, so it would totally make sense that this werewolf project ties into the Moon Knight series launch, as well. In any case, Marvel is clearly getting into the spirit of the greatest holiday of all, and they are inviting all sorts of creatures of the night to come out and play.
Obviously, we will continue to follow this project as it develops and will have additional updates as we learn more.
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