Kevin Smith Says Marvel Studios Has Plans to Use Werewolf By Night

Kevin Smith has revealed that Marvel Studios has plans for Werewolf By Night. Smith, a long-time Marvel comics fan, was at one point set to work on a Howard the Duck animated series for Hulu that would have tied in with M.O.D.O.K to form an event series, The Offenders. Hulu decided not to move forward with Howard the Duck, but Smith reveals that he planned to introduce the cult favorite hero, Werewolf by Night, into the series.

Introduced in Marvel Spotlight #2 in February 1972, Werewolf By Night (originally Jack Russell) is a man who is cursed to turn into a werewolf due to his family history. In the comics, he has ties to Dracula, the Darkhold, and various mythical and supernatural corners of the Marvel universe. He has also made appearances in animated projects like Ultimate Spider-Man and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. Most recently, Marvel introduced a new Werewolf by Night, a young Native American man of Hopi descent named Jake Gomez, presumably to generate interest in the character before a big screen debut.

According to Comicbook.com, via The Fatman Beyond podcast that Kevin Smith co-hosts alongside Marc Bernardin, Smith reveals that Marvel Studios film division has plans for Werewolf by Night. He discussed how when he was creating his Howard the Duck series, he wanted to include a bunch of characters Marvel introduced in the 1970s and one of them was Werewolf by Night. Jeph Loeb, who was then Executive Vice President of Marvel television, told Smith that Werewolf by Night was off-limits due to plans from the film division. Read what Smith said below:

For a red hot minute, I was working on Howard the Duck and before Dave [Willis, Aqua Teen Hunger Force co-creator] involved, when it was just me, Jeph Loeb was like 'Hey man, I think you'd be good for Howard the f--king Duck.' I reached out to Walter Flanagan from Comic Book Men and told him I'm gonna take a stab at all the f--king 70s characters. Walt was giving suggestions and Werewolf By Night was absolutely on the list. In my head, as I started building my season, I was like, 'Alright. Episode 5. Werewolf by Night.' The idea of our story was that Howard was trapped here and he was trying to get pages of the Darkhold, which would allow him to go back. There's Howard as I'm laying it out and then I go into Jeph and told him what I wanted to do, and that's when they said 'You can't use Werewolf by Night,' and I asked why. They said the movie division was using him.

Much has changed since Smith was working on Howard the Duck and what Marvel could have planned for Werewolf by Night. Marvel Television was folded into Marvel Studios and would be overseen by Kevin Feige while Jeph Loeb stepped down. The previous barriers that kept the film and television series of the MCU from crossing over are now stripped. That would allow for a greater degree of crossover between the planned Disney+ series and the upcoming films, as audiences saw with the introduction of Jonathan Majors as Kang in Loki ahead of his film debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

Where and what plans Marvel Studios has for Werewolf By Night remain to be seen, but there are plenty of potential projects he could appear in. With Wanda Maximoff in possession of the Darkhold at the end of WandaVision, and the curse of the werewolf in the Marvel comics originated from the book, the character could appear in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The popular nature of vampires vs, werewolves makes Werewolf by Night a prime candidate to appear in the upcoming Blade film, which just recently booked Bassam Tariq to direct. Finally, the most likely place could be in the upcoming Moon Knight series starring Oscar Issac, since the character of Moon Knight first appeared in Werewolf by Night #32 in 1975. With the rise of supernatural characters like Scarlet Witch, Blade, and now possibly Werewolf by Night, Marvel Studios could be building a team of supernatural characters like The Legion of Monsters or the Midnight Sons.

Next: Why A Midnight Sons Series Would Be Great For The MCU

Source: Comicbook.com