Teen Wolf has had a fascinating history over the past four decades. Following the cheesy Michael J. Fox classic in 1985, a sequel and an animated kids show (The Cartoon Adventures of Teen Wolf) was created before the idea laid dormant until 2011. That was when the title was rebirthed with the surprisingly popular MTV series, Teen Wolf, which lasted until 2017. Given the property's inability to stay dead, it probably shouldn't be that surprising that, six years after we last saw them, The Pack is returning in Teen Wolf: The Movie.
There's a hazy full moon in Beacon Hills, which in the world of Teen Wolf, signals some bad news. Actual evil is afoot, and the wolves are howling out, summoning banshees, hellhounds, kitsunes, and every kind of supernatural shape-shifter which hides in the night. Meanwhile, werewolf Scott McCall (Tyler Posey) is now less of a teen wolf and more of a 20-something wolf, but he's still an alpha, and he can still save the day. Scott reunites the old gang and brings in new allies to confront a more mature evil than they've faced, in a more mature and cinematic variation on the franchise The stars of Teen Wolf: The Movie (Posey, Crystal Reed, Holland Roden, and Shelley Hennig) spoke with MovieWeb about their return to Beacon Hills and the Teen Wolf universe.
Posey, Reed, Hennig, and Roden on Returning to Teen Wolf
Tyler Posey has been the face of Teen Wolf for over a decade now, being turned into a werewolf in the show's first episode and spending 99 more episodes navigating the mysterious world of the supernatural. When he received the call for Teen Wolf: The Movie, there was no hesitation. “Hell yeah, dude, it was definitely something I had been fantasizing about for the last 12 years of my life," said Posey. "Even during the TV show, I was wanting for a movie to happen. I was just super grateful, super stoked, immediately on board, no matter what the storyline was going to be. I love Teen Wolf, and I was ready to bring that sh*t back home.”
Crystal Reed returns, and it's a welcome return for fans of the show. Reed was wonderful in her three major seasons of Teen Wolf (and some of the fifth), playing Allison Argent, the kind of Van Helsing of werewolves, considering her lengthy lineage of wolf-hunting ancestors. It's been seven years since we've seen her on the show, and her reaction was emotionally complicated. “I was scared and nervous," said Reed, "I was feeling all the things that you'd feel. But initially, I was just really excited to come back and explore Allison in a completely different way.”
Shelly Hennig was a delightful addition to the cast in season three, playing the 'werecoyote' Malia Tate. “It was unexpected on my end," said Hennig about news of the film. "I never thought, like, when we ended this series four years ago, I thought that was over just for logistics reasons. So it's surprising. But we were very, very excited by it.” Holland Roden, who has been so excellent in the underrated Channel Zero and No Escape, was always fun as the super-popular high school girl Lydia Martin, who's actually a genius and a burgeoning banshee. “Colton Haynes was the first to tell me. I don't usually believe what Colton says," joked Roden; Haynes portrayed her onscreen boyfriend Jackson Whittemore. "And so, I got the call from Jeff. I was shocked.”
Getting Back Into Character Several Years Later
Even though it's been seven or more years, most of these actors were able to fully inhabit their characters once again after varying amounts of time. “It was like riding a bike for me, personally," said Roden. “Yeah, I've mentioned this before," added Hennig, "but my first day was running in the Beacon Hills High School hallways, and that brought me right back to it. I mean, I'm a very physical person, actor, whatever you want to call it. And for me to be running, chasing after something evil in those specific hallways. I was like, I'm back. This feels right.”
It was a bit different for Reed, whose character has changed when we first see her. “Well, this is two totally different people," explained Reed. this is a completely opposite aspect of Allison. So, it was challenging and so much that I had to develop that and live with that in my body. But when she remembers who she is, that just came very easily.” For Posey, it was also a bit challenging at first, but for different reasons. He explained:
It was challenging for me a little bit because, you know, I was a little apprehensive of if I had the chops to play this character again. I knew how; I was just like, holy sh*t, when they call action, am I going to be able to pull this off? And then, you know, action happened, and it clicked immediately. And I was like back in it and super proud of it. You know, I feel like I'm more Scott than I ever was during the TV show. So, it's really, really interesting.”
Tyler Posey & Holland Roden on Reuniting with the Cast on Set
One of the best parts about all of this was having an actual reunion with their cast mates. “It was sick," gushed Posey. "Really surreal, dude. We are very blessed and lucky to get the opportunity to do something that not a lot of people do. It's like a high school reunion, you know, like 10 years later. Only we're creating and having fun, and making art, and that's so unique of a thing for anybody to do that. You know, we're super lucky and blessed, and we treated it that way. And we just had a sh*tload of fun.”
"We all sort of keep in touch," added Roden. "We see each other at different press events all over the world. So, it wasn't like we hadn't seen each other. It was more just like, Yeah, this is crazy. We can't believe it. You know, it was more of that kind of thing. Seeing each other in character.”
Crystal Reed & Tyler Posey on Returning to a Possible Teen Wolf Sequel
“I’d be open to come back," said Reed, referring to the future of Teen Wolf. After all, it's been nearly 40 years since the Fox film, so this franchise, like a werewolf itself, has the ability to continually transform itself. “F*ck yeah, dude," added Posey emphatically. "I love Teen Wolf so much. I want to bring it back in any way, in a cartoon, any capacity if there's Teen Wolf, I want to be all over it. And so, I think it would be cool. What Teen Wolf did was it always gave us the opportunity to be behind the camera, I produced the last couple of seasons, directed, you know, we all wrote and in, collaborated with some of our ideas.” Posey continued:
And so I think it'd be cool if we could, you know, get more behind the camera and behind the scenes and Crystal directs and, you know, I get my hand and writing some stuff, you know, so I think that's where I think that's where it's heading, you know, because we care about the project so much.
He's not the only one. Teen Wolf: The Movie premiered January 26th exclusively on Paramount+.