Werewolf By Night director wanted Elsa Bloodstone to be less hypersexual and more of a "real person"
Played by Laura Donnelly, elite monster hunter Elsa Bloodstone definitely doesn't have her original comics look
While She-Hulk: Attorney At Law aimed to please crossover-hungry fans with the returns of Bruce Banner, Wong, and Emil Blonsky, Werewolf By Night opened up a whole new corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Alongside the titular character, played by Gael García Bernal, the new special presentation introduces Laura Donnelly’s Elsa Bloodstone, the black sheep of a monster-hunting family who is ready to claim her inheritance. While Werewolf By Night’s aesthetic pays tribute to classic horror movies from the ’40s and ’50s, other elements definitely aren’t retro.
“When you see Elsa—I love that character, but when you see her in the comics, it’s really this hypersexualized version of this person with shotguns and all of this,” director Michael Giacchino says in a new interview with Phase Zero. “When we started this project, I was like ‘Kevin [Feige, Marvel Studios president], I don’t want any guns in this, no guns.’ I think we can tell the story without guns, we don’t need them. I certainly don’t want Elsa to be the kind of character that’s just a gun-toting—you know what I mean. I was so against that.”
As much as progressive ideals have guided Marvel Comics since the beginning, there is still plenty of content that has decidedly not aged well. Elsa was first introduced in 2001 and was, for example, supposed to be combat-ready in high heels and a cleavage-baring crop top. In Werewolf By Night, she’s wearing a turtleneck and fully covered up from chin to practical boots.
“I wanted her to be badass, of course, but I wanted her to be smart, I wanted her to be vulnerable, I just wanted her to be a real person,” Giacchino continues. “Laura Donnelly embodies all of that in spades.”
Additionally, the director enlisted cinematographer Zoë White for the Halloween special, whose subversion of a typical damsel in distress scene is a new highlight of the MCU. The reimagined live-action adaptations of Elsa, Werewolf By Night, and Man-Thing have all become immediate fan favorites.
Werewolf By Night is now streaming on Disney+.