The fans were always vocal about wanting a revival of some sort, but there were two major hurdles that stood in the way. The first hurdle Chris McCarthy handled-and he handled it quickly. He first told me he wanted to bring back Teen Wolf during a dinner in New York about two years ago. At the time, there was a rights issue between MTV and MGM, which owned the rights to the 1980s film with Michael J. Fox, that inspired the series.

The next thing I know, a rights agreement was reached. And I got a call from Chris and the studio saying, 'I think we're going to do a Teen Wolf movie.' I said, 'Well, I guess I'll probably have to write it.' Chris made it happen.

The second hurdle was me. I had to figure out the story and what would interest me in coming back to the world of Beacon Hills and the characters.

Teen Wolf was very much a family project, so it wasn't just getting the actors back together-I made sure I brought back a bunch of people who were involved in the original series to write the film with me. I also brought back much of the same crew. It was a surprise to me to come back to it so soon, and I didn't know I was going to be the one to write it. I always thought that I might hand the baton off to someone else-new writers and a new creative team. That's not what happened, of course, but the idea of passing the baton is central to the film.

Appealing to a Broader Audience

Scott McCall (Tyler Posey) is older and living in Los Angeles. He doesn't know quite what to do with himself now that he's no longer the hero of Beacon Hills. He has to return, but he's essentially passing off the baton to a new teen wolf, Eli Hale (Vince Mattis).

That's what's appealing to a broader audience. We have another teenager's story in this for young adult viewers but age the original characters to make things interesting for fans of the original series. More importantly, now that we've introduced a couple of new characters in the movie, like Eli, I could see him leading up a whole series of his own.

But the material doesn't stop with new characters! We also always brought in these other mythologies (outside of werewolves) to make the world feel universal. The idea with Teen Wolf was to take the werewolf myth and twist it. We wanted to say to ourselves: 'What's new and different?' from all the other werewolf stories out there.

It's nice to think that something you created can branch off into more stories far past whatever you initially imagine.

I have an overarching deal with Paramount, and as part of it I'm working on one more werewolf-centric series, Wolf Pack. The show is based on the book series by Edo Van Belkom and follows two teens whose lives are upended when a California wildfire awakens a supernatural creature. But after that, I'll be taking a step back, for now from any more werewolf content. I have a few other projects in the works, including a live-action reboot of the sci-fi series Aeon Flux. Like I said, I'm a genre guy. It's been a great journey so far, and I'm excited to see what comes next.

As told to Kelby Clark

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Paramount Global published this content on 24 January 2023 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 24 January 2023 18:34:07 UTC.