Marvel is doing something we've never seen — or heard — from the company before with "Wolverine: The Long Night," the company's first-ever scripted podcast.
Richard Armitage plays our main character, Logan, but in this 10-episode crime thriller, we hear a lot from Ato Essandoh — a true comics fan. You might recognize Essandoh from roles in "Django Unchained," the TV series "Vinyl," "Jason Bourne," and Netflix's "Altered Carbon."
In the "Wolverine" podcast, Essandoh plays agent Tad Marshall, a man dispatched to the fictional Burns, Alaska, to investigate a serial-killer case.
Wolverine has been around for a while, at least since the '70s, so exploring his story isn't anything new. But part of what makes this podcast so unique is how sound puts listeners in the middle of the action.
"We recorded all the scenes together in the room, and then they added whatever sounds and all that stuff that they wanted," Essandoh said. "They did amazing work, sound design, but a lot of that was also we were actually outside, or there was one studio that they had actually some Foley equipment. So that was cool, too, because I was like, man, we get to do our own Foleys? That's so cool!"
Foley equipment, named after sound effects artist Jack Foley, helps to produce sounds added to films and TV shows in post-production.
"I'm amazed at how immersed in the world you become because you feel like a fly on the wall — it's fantastic," Essandoh said.
"Wolverine: The Long Night" is currently available only on Stitcher, a Newsy sister company under the E.W. Scripps umbrella. The podcast will be available on other platforms this fall.
