Werewolf By Night is being praised for its creative and technical aspects and, most importantly, for swaying away from previous MCU media in style and presentation. The special presentation from Marvel Studios made a howling good time for fans by introducing them to far corners of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, bringing monsters and hunters into the fold. But while it shares continuity with the franchise, director-composer Michael Giacchino allowed Werewolf By Night a separate space, not referencing other MCU shows and films and refraining from notable cameos.
Recently, Disney+ included Werewolf By Night in MCU’s Timeline Order. And to everyone’s surprise, the show got the latest spot in the MCU continuity. As per Disney+’s Timeline Order, Werewolf By Night takes place after the events of Thor: Love and Thunder, meaning that the special’s events are the most recent ones. But Gael Garcia Bernal, who played the titular character in the special, believes that Jack Russell isn’t new to this expansive world and may already have centuries of stories in place before the special. In an interview with Marvel.com, Bernal revealed that he built up his character because he might have been alive for several decades and that his portrayal in Werewolf By Night is much more mature than that would have been in an origin story.
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The special’s introductory narration was quite clear about the monsters and their hunters’ history spanning centuries. Jack Russell may have hidden his true nature for all these years, masquerading as a hunter and hiding his identity. The fact that he avoided the world knowing of his werewolf persona successfully all these years is also a possible justification for his absence from the mainstream.
Among the many aspects of a character like this, definitely the half-canine kind of aspect of the character, where all of these things helped me build the character and give body and color to the character. One of them, for example, was werewolves who lived many, many years. So who knows? Jack Russell maybe has been alive for the last 200, 300, or 400 years. So how would a character like this or someone that has lived so many years would react to the mundane or to the day-to-day? How would the conversations be engaged? You know, so things like that. And there’s a big possibility with a character like this to go into different tangents and to try out different things. So that’s how we started to build it and put it together.
In the special, we learned that once turned, Jack finds it difficult to tell friends from enemies, making him a more significant threat. But the moment he recognizes Elsa marks a new development in his character arc, which may take some shape in the MCU in the future alongside a further exploration of his friendship with Man-Thing. Earlier, Marvel played with the idea of monsters with Ghost Rider in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, and now that shall further expand through Blade and Moon Knight. All that does hint at a possible collaboration in the future which shall be pretty exciting. We don’t know where monsters and hunters have been in the MCU all these years, but we haven’t seen the last of them.
Werewolf By Night is now available to stream on Disney+.
