Marvel fans who have seen ‘The curse of the werewolf‘ (Werewolf by Night) on Disney+ would be surprised to see the name of the director as the final titles progress. Michael Giacchino is best known for being the Oscar- and Emmy-winning composer of ‘Up’ and ‘Lost,’ not to mention other high-profile, big-grossing movies like ‘The Batman’ and the last three entries. in the ‘Spider-Man’ franchise.
A career dedicated to cinema
But how remember Giacchino to Variety:
“I’ve been behind the camera since I was a young boy in Edgewater Park, NJ. I love making movies, I’ve loved it since I was 9 years old. That’s what it was all about, getting all the kids in the neighborhood together and creating movies in the backyard of my parents”.
When offered the opportunity to direct a Marvel project by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, Giacchino immediately suggested ‘Werewolf by Night’, a not so well known comic from the 1970swhich he also wanted to incorporate ‘Man-Thing’:
“For me, monster movies are nothing more than allegories for people with problems. Every time I saw ‘King Kong’ or ‘The Werewolf’ and everyone was chasing them with torches, trying to kill them, I always felt bad for them. I’m like, ‘Guys, he doesn’t want to be doing this! He doesn’t want to be in a ruckus! He’s got a problem and he needs help.'”
‘The Curse of the Werewolf’ is an homage to the horror films of the 1940s, a rare 53-minute one-shot special format that is also in black and white like those movies.
“In my mind, from the beginning, it had to be black and white. There was skepticism from the upper levels of Marvel, so it was shot in color, but we had a special monitor that allowed me to see what it would look like if it was finally monochromatic plan was approved. I felt if we were going to do something new in the Marvel Universe, let’s do something really different and bold. Don’t worry about where it goes or how it’s going to connect to something else. Let’s take the Rod Serling approach, let’s count a single isolated story, a night in the life of Jack (Gael García Bernal) and Elsa (Laura Donnelly). That’s really what I wanted to do.”
But that was not enough to get away with it. The composer explains that we had to work on the concept until we convinced the “boss”:
“It was maybe the third montage that Feige finally agreed it should be in black and white. Maybe because it wasn’t really a pilot for a possible future Marvel series, but anything could happen. We’ll see. “