'What We Do in the Shadows' filmed that Twilight-inspired kickball match in an actual snowstorm

Last month, Season 3 of What We Do in the Shadows addressed the sparkling vampire in the room with a parody of the now-famous baseball scene from 2008's film adaptation of Twilight. The folks behind Shadows even secured the rights to same song used in the movie: "Supermassive Black Hole" by Muse.

"We’ve all seen YouTube clips of Twilight. The YouTube clips of the baseball scene are a huge inspiration, so I think it was the perfect opportunity once you had this werewolf story set-up. Now is the time and the closest we can get to mimicking it," writer and executive story editor Sarah Naftalis told SYFY WIRE during a press roundtable at New York Comic Con over the weekend.

That "werewolf set-up" comes via Nandor (Kayvan Novak), who falls in love with Gail (Aida Turturro), a member of the lupine pack our vampire protagonists originally feuded with back in Season 1. Nandor hopes to make peace between two groups, but when Gail hooks up with another werewolf, the divide splits open again. Instead of another round of one-on-one combat, Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) suggests that the issue be resolved "Twilight-style" with a good ol' fashioned kickball match.

"The original idea was that it was gonna be baseball and then realizing that we were shooting in Toronto in January, it turned into kickball. And it turned into kickball in six inches of snow," revealed showrunner Paul Simms.

"What was great about that is that was real weather. There’s no getting around it," added writer and co-executive producer Sam Johnson. "Shooting in Toronto has its disadvantages, but the weather really helps."

Simms continued: "If you’d written a scene saying, ‘They play kickball in the snow’ and you didn’t have snow, it costs millions of dollars to make it. So, a lot of stuff is we roll with whatever’s going on and try to make the best of it. But that one…when you watch it, you go, ‘Wow, you so rarely see a TV show where people are outside in the snow,’ and that’s because it’s expensive and uncomfortable."

Credit: Russ Martin/FX

During the show's NYCC panel later that same afternoon, Simms told fans to be on the lookout for "the most ambitious episode we've done as far as seeing the other creatures of the supernatural world" in the upcoming fourth season. The showrunner didn't go into great detail, but the desire to build out this supernatural universe could lead to an eventual crossover with another television spinoff of What We Do in the Shadows: Wellington Paranormal.

"I watch it and I like it," Simms said at the rountable. "I love the two leads in that show that Jemaine founded. One of them was not even really a trained actress, the woman who plays the main female lead. But we’ve sometimes talked about figuring out a way if there could be a crossover, but we haven’t figured out the exact way to do it yet, because they’re all the way in New Zeland. But it’s interesting [because] it is the same universe that exists over there and exists in Staten Island."

It probably won't happen anytime soon as the world continues to struggle with COVID-19. New Zealand in particular only just started to lift some of its pandemic restrictions this month. "The pandemic makes everything a logistical [nightmare]," Simms said. "Even getting wigs…we needed a special wig this month and all the supply chains are all broken."

Nevertheless, a precedent for crossover events already exists after Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement (who wrote, directed, and starred in the 2014 mockumentary upon which both series are based) already guest starred on Shadows as their film counterparts. "It’s always fun when that world comes into our world," remarked series director and editor, Yana Gorskaya.

"Everyone always loves it like, ‘Ohhh, I see what you guys did.’ We did it with the movie, so why then why wouldn’t we do it with Wellington?'" Guillén. concluded. "It’d be on-brand."

Season 3's eighth episode (entitled "The Wellness Center") premieres on FX tonight at 10 p.m. EST.  It will be available to stream via FX on Hulu tomorrow — Friday, Oct. 15.

After tonight, only three episodes remain for the show's third outing, but not to worry! The Shadows team is already in the midst of filming Season 4, which will open with a plot connected to the Suez Canal blockage that occured in the spring.

Click here for SYFY WIRE’s full coverage of New York Comic Con 2021