There are a lot of expectations on any MCU TV show to have some tie to the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it seems like Werewolf by Night will pull from the existing MCU canon, but fans should not perhaps expect too many direct links to other Marvel projects for now. Like Moon Knight before it, Werewolf by Night takes a step into the darker side of Marvel Comics, and this time around they aren’t messing around with an all out homage to classic 40s horror movies, that will enhance and expand the MCU once more. Marvel Studios producer Brian Gay explained to Screen Rant:

“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.”

Werewolf by Night Is Being Called The Best Disney+ Marvel Show Yet

man-thing werewolf by night
Marvel Studios
Disney

Werewolf by Night’s initial reviews have been overwhelmingly positive around the new and exciting direction of the MCU’s first true horror series. Even though Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness brought a dark thread to Marvel’s movies, and Moon Knight has also delved deeper into the more violent avenues of Marvel’s comics, Werewolf by Night is the first to really go into the monster movie territory. In another interview, Gay explained that Marvel’s long hidden history of monsters will start to come to light in the special presentation. He said:

“I think one of the very cool things about the special is it's just peeling back the corner of monsters in the MCU, right? So there's not just the monsters that are part of Werewolf by Night, but the ones that were up on the wall, there's some of that artwork as well. What all this lends to is the idea that for centuries there have been monsters within the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and they've been being tracked or hunted or kept at bay by these hunters.”

Werewolf by Night premieres on Disney+ on October 7, with a reported runtime of around 53 minutes.