A producer of Disney+'s upcoming Marvel's Werewolf By Night teases the impact the special will have on the existing MCU. Werewolf By Night, which is set to premiere on Disney+ is October, has been highly-anticipated by fans and critics alike. Based on a short-lived '70s Marvel Comics series, the forthcoming hour-long special, directed by longtime MCU composer Michael Giacchino, is thought to be the MCU's first foray into pure horror. After a recent surprise screening at FantasticFest, the first critical reactions to Werewolf By Night have been extremely positive.

Many, however, are looking forward to the presence of characters like Werewolf By Night and Man-Thing in the MCU proper. With the post-credits scene of Eternals almost directly setting up 2023's forthcoming Blade film, the MCU seems to be headed towards the more horror-prone corners of the Marvel Universe. This opens the door for other obscure and frightening Marvel Comics characters to enter the onscreen universe. These darker, more horror-fueled tones could also influence existing characters and stories MCU fans have already met. With less than a month to go before Werewolf By Night's debut on Disney+, a producer has come forward to explain how it fits into the MCU.

Related: Every Man-Thing MCU Tease & Setup Before Werewolf By Night

Speaking to Screen Rant in an exclusive interview, Marvel Studios producer Brian Gay explains how the Werewolf By Night special will enhance the world of the MCU without pulling from existing spaces of it. Gay also goes into detail on the special's overall relation to the full picture of the MCU, and how it will forge a new path that the franchise has only scratched the surface of to this point. Read the exclusive excerpt below:

So for this, it's a special presentation, which is a bit of a new format for us, right? 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.

Why Werewolf by Night Features Minimal MCU Ties

Werewolf By Night is the first hour-long special the MCU has produced and is the first step into a new format for a franchise that has worked not only on the big screen, but in both short and long form television series. The special also predates any further MCU horror projects, including Blade, by a year or so, and has the pressure to make the genre, which filmmakers such as Sam Raimi and Scott Derrickson have attempted to bring to the franchise, work officially. Additionally, Giacchino and Marvel have worked to give Werewolf By Night a Universal-style vintage, black-and-white horror feel that will tonally set the project apart from Marvel's other work.

Keeping all of that in mind, everything Gay said about Werewolf By Night being in its own corner of the MCU without input from existing properties makes lots of sense. Marvel wants Werewolf By Night to stand out, and they also know that giving into genre and allowing first-time director Giacchino to flex all of his vision make the project a huge risk. At the same time, making big, unconnected risks is what has made the MCU so enjoyable, ever since the franchise's first unexpected gamble paid off with 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy. Therefore, for a true horror MCU project to work, it needs to exist by itself first before jump-starting its own mini-universe of subsequent projects such as The Blade. Regardless of any ties to the larger MCU, Werewolf By Night remains one of the most anticipated premieres of the Halloween season.