Werewolves is an upcoming action-horror film starring Frank Grillo and directed by Steven C. Miller. Grillo, known for his roles in The Purge franchise and Marvel Studios’ Captain America films, delivers another physically demanding performance as Wesley Marshall, who is tasked with saving his loved ones from werewolves. A supermoon event has transformed people exposed to the moonlight into werewolves, resulting in billions of lives lost overnight. The world prepares for another supermoon event a year later, and that’s where the film starts.

Grillo is no stranger to action roles, and he has embraced the intense physical demands of Werewolves with enthusiasm.

“I was very fit, which was good because I had to take my shirt off,” Grillo joked to Nerd Reactor. “At my age, you never know. But it was a very physical movie, and I needed to be in shape—not just for looks, but for the action.”

While comparisons to The Purge: Anarchy were inevitable, Grillo noted a supernatural twist: “It’s Purge Anarchy meets werewolves. It’s more exciting because it’s got werewolves. It’s simple.”

Without revealing too much, Grillo hinted at the film’s finale: “When that happens at the end, I think sequel. Maybe two sequels or three. It’s an interesting way to tell the story because now you have to figure out what I am.”

Grillo also emphasized the film’s emotional core: “The heartbeat of the film is me and my family and having to save my family. My brother’s gone, and this is my responsibility, and that’s what you connect to. The rest of it’s fun, but we need something to connect to.”

Director Steven C. Miller relished the challenge of creating a werewolf pandemic. “I hadn’t seen a movie where werewolves were taking over the world,” he said. “Obviously, we’ve gotten the zombie taking over. We’ve got a lot of other viruses happening. But for me, when I read the idea that maybe this could be a werewolf, almost pandemic, that was something that sort of hit home to me, and felt like this could be a really fun story to tell.”

To bring the werewolves to life, Miller leaned on practical effects and animatronics. “You just want to try to make them as unique as possible,” the director said. “And it felt like giving them each personality made them super unique, and trying to keep it wild because I knew the movie was kind of bonkers and was going to be fun. I felt like we could infuse that into the wolves’ personalities, and that would make the movie even more bonkers. So that was something we were doing from the very beginning.”

Miller also shared about the challenges of orchestrating complex action sequences: “Oh, man, it’s a lot of fun, because you have all of these things that you normally do on an action movie, but now you’re adding werewolves in the mix, and these guys are really there. They’re really on set. To have all of them trying to play together with the pyrotechnics that are going off, or the guns firing going off, on top of having Frank there, I mean, it’s just one of those things that you dream of as a kid.”

About Werewolves

Synopsis: In Werewolves, a supermoon event has triggered a latent gene in every human on the planet, turning anyone who entered the moonlight into a werewolf for that one night. Chaos ensued and close to a billion people died. Now, a year later, the Supermoon is back.

Directed by: Steven C. Miller and written by Matthew Kennedy.

It stars ​​Frank Grillo, Katrina Law, Ilfenesh Hadera, Kamdynn Gary, James Michael Cummings, Lydia Styslinger, Betzaida Landín, and Lou Diamond Phillips.

Werewolves is set to hit theaters on December 6, 2024.