Werewolf by Night is another production from Marvel Studios, with the TV special airing via Disney+. Based on a Marvel Comics horror character who was most prominent in the 1970s, the Halloween special would seemingly be the perfect place for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to truly delve into horror. Unfortunately, it seems that the MCU will simply be treading back to its usual tonal stomping grounds.
Touted as a "comedy," and with the trailer backing this up, Werewolf by Night is apparently another laughapalooza courtesy of the MCU. Given that Marvel has been increasingly criticized for injecting jokes where they shouldn't be, doing so in a horror property of all things only makes this even more egregious.
Marvel Studios Making Werewolf by Night a Comedy Is a Huge, Missed Opportunity
The titular Werewolf by Night, a.k.a. Jack Russell, has never been a funny character. Likewise, his stories have all been fairly serious horror tales befitting someone afflicted with lycanthropy. Unfortunately, that's not going to be how he's handled in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The promo for Werewolf by Night establishes the production as essentially a quirky parody of old-school, classic horror films. This is a huge waste of the property, since, if played straight, it would actually allow for some real tonal and scope diversity among the MCU.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is about the closest that Marvel Studios has come to a "horror" movie, though it never truly earned that label. Werewolf by Night could have, if nothing else, been a sort of apology for this, delivering a true horror story that was completely different from anything within the realms of what the Avengers or other superheroes deal with. Instead, the easy route has been taken, injecting unnecessary comedy into a property where it doesn't fit. This is an especially bad omen for Marvel Studios' upcoming PG-13 Blade movie, which could be particularly toothless. Worst of all, it shows how Marvel Studios is only doubling down on its biggest consistent criticism.
Marvel Studios Has a Comedy Problem - And It Needs to Stop
The quips and snarky humor of 2008's Iron Man were incredibly well-received, namely due to the snappy nature of Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Tony Stark. The issues, however, began with the release of the first Avengers movie four years later. Suddenly, everyone was making jokes and quips, with the problem exacerbated further in James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy. Since then, the Marvel Cinematic Universe's biggest criticism has been that the jokes are constant, even at the expense of drama and storytelling. Thor: Love and Thunder really hit the zenith (or rather, nadir) of this joke quotient, turning more people against this lack of tension.
Doing this with characters who many times are not humorous is bad enough, but to waste an outright horror property and turn into another endless array of quips feels downright disrespectful to the source material. It also makes Marvel Studios' many properties begin to merge together thematically, reducing the supposed allure of seeing these disparate characters on screen together. Now, it seems that the chance of seeing Werewolf by Night and other horror concepts given their macabre due in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has passed, with the shared universe as a whole eliciting more laughs than shrieks. What could have at least been a creepy Halloween treat will likely be something more along the lines of Abbot and Costello Meet the Avengers.
Werewolf by Night will debut Oct. 7 on Disney+.