Hollywood comes calling for ‘Wolf Pack’ show based on Brampton author’s book
Published April 6, 2023 at 11:09 am
From writing news, being a stay-at-home dad and crafting a best-selling book, Brampton’s Edo van Belkom has worn a lot of different hats.
And the wordsmith from Brampton can add a Hollywood credit to his resume now that his novel Wolf Pack has been adapted for TV on Paramount+ with Buffy the Vampire Slayer herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, as star and executive producer.
“The book is the inspiration for the series, it’s not the guidebook,” van Belkom told Insauga.com of his novel about a group of young werewolves trying to fit into the human world after a forest fire.
The first book in a series of four, Wolf Pack was published in 2004 and was a winner of the Silver Birch award. The Brampton author’s book is now a TV show streaming on Paramount+ by Jeff Davis, creator of both Criminal Minds and the Teen Wolf series.
“He’s changed it from what was a family drama in the books into a supernatural mystery,” he said, adding there are more “grown-up” themes in the show than in his original work.
And while van Belkom says he didn’t have a hand in bringing his book to the screen, there’s no bad blood as Davis has been “very respectful of the source material” and gave van Belkom a stand-alone credit screen at the beginning of each episode.
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Movie and TV star Sarah Michelle Gellar (left) and Brampton’s Edo van Belkom (right). Gellar stars and executive produces Wolf Pack, which is based on van Belkom’s 2004 novel of the same name.
“So credit to him for doing that, because he respects the part that I had to play in it even though I didn’t have anything to do with the actual transition to a TV series,” he said.
Wolf Pack and its three sequels are available for e-readers and on audiobooks, but only the first novel is still in paperback print. Wolf Pack had seen interest from other studios in the past, but van Belkom said working with Davis, Gellar and Paramount was unlike anything he’d experienced in the industry.
The Brampton author has met with the stars and visited the set in Atlanta during the shooting of the first season, and was even invited to the red-carpet premiere of Wolf Pack.
“It was an otherworldly experience,” he said of the premiere in Los Angeles. “To walk the red carpet and for one night to be rubbing shoulders with these people, it was fantastic.”
Because his book and the show aren’t identical, van Belkom has been sharing “Wolf Pack Facts” videos on Instagram breaking down where the book and the show link up or diverge.
A veteran of the horror genre, Gellar stars as Agt. Kristin Ramsey in Wolf Pack, an arson investigator investigating the cause of the forest fire. Rodrigo Santoro of Lost and Westworld fame also stars as Garrett Briggs, a California Park Ranger who adopts teen werewolves, Harlan and Luna.
The full first season is available now on Paramount+, but a looming Writers Guild of America strike has delayed any announcement for a second season, van Belkom said.
“Everyone’s clamouring for season two,” he said, adding that if the writers strike “that’s going to halt just about every production in Hollywood.”
But van Belkom said that, as a writer, he understands the Guild’s need for collective bargaining.
“I’m very confident there will be a second season, I’m just hoping it happens sooner than later.”
You can watch the entire first season of Wolf Pack streaming now on Paramount+.
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