Plenty of new superheroes have joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Avengers: Endgame capped off three box office-dominating movie phases and bid farewell to some of its key characters. Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, and Moon Knight have all brought something new to the MCU landscape in their respective Disney+ series, but now, spooky season is set to introduce a monster in their midst.

“Kevin was like, ‘Really?’ Because it was off the beaten path in terms of where they were and what they were working on,” Giacchino tells Den of Geek. “And I felt it was a fun, dark corner of the Marvel Universe that hadn’t been explored in terms of television or movies… But he loves that stuff too, so it all came together.”

“My brother Anthony and I would always spend Saturdays watching old monster movies,” Giacchino explains. “Whether it be Ray Harryhausen movies, the old Universal movies, or Hammer films, we didn’t care. I loved that feeling, so when I jumped into this, the whole idea was to create something that had the feeling of those films and give that experience to some other kid that’s out in the world.”

“Music has to go hand in hand with the story,” he says. “I think years of working with some of the best directors on the planet really helped me get a secondary education in filmmaking. I would go to the set [and] I loved watching J.J. Abrams, Brad Bird, Matt Reeves, and Jon Watts work, all of these great directors. I felt very prepared. There are a lot of similarities between music and filmmaking. I regularly have to wrangle 150 to 200 people to get a score put together. Here, the crew is your orchestra.”

Giacchino was also eager to learn as many tricks of the trade as possible on his first major directing gig. His enthusiasm for the project is infectious, and his eyes light up when he talks about sampling different jobs on the set. 

“I’m a filmmaking geek,” he says. “I wanted to operate the Steadicam. I wanted to do the boom mic. I tried focus-pulling, even pushing the dolly. It helps you think about it before you ask somebody for something because you have a slight understanding of what it is they have to do.”

But it wasn’t all geeking out on set for Giacchino. “Doing this stuff is exhausting, and it’s hard. You’re doing long hours. Sometimes we were out filming till six in the morning. It’s a marathon, something you almost need to train for in order to survive because there aren’t a lot of breaks. It’s just the nature of the beast.”

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“I feel like the world has gone into this thing where all the scary stuff has gotten too sadistic,” he says. “And we’ve lost the heart of it as well. It was important to me that this has a real heart to it, that it’s not just blood and guts, that it actually has a real moral center.”

He thinks this attitude has become much more prevalent in recent years but that monster movies can put those struggling with all-too-human problems in the spotlight. “People that have afflictions, any number of true human issues that any one of us could have, whether it be mental illness, whether it be alcoholism, whether it be depression. Anything that makes you feel alienated or less than – that’s what monsters represent. They’re constantly struggling to be seen, to be heard, to be accepted. Let’s look into their souls and see what it’s really like to walk in their shoes.”

“A lot of it is practical effects that we did in-camera,” Giacchino confirms. “Crazy things we thought we’d have to end up adjusting but then never did because it was great as it was. Most of the makeup was practical, and most of the monsters were. We only have one monster where we leaned into CG, otherwise it would’ve been impossible to do, but we really wanted to honor the tradition of practical effects.”

One thing seems certain: that he’ll stay with the people in the industry he’s grown close to, and the franchises he loves. 

“Looking back at all the films and everything I’ve worked on, what’s most astonishing is that so many of them are things that I was obsessed with as a kid, whether it be Planet of the Apes, Star Trek, or Star Wars,” he muses. “I guess I’m never going to grow up.”