Star Oscar Isaac teases that Moon Knight will go in weird directions and cites its status as a show as allowing for riskier creative choices. Isaac leads the cast of the Marvel Cinematic Universe series as the titular character alongside Ethan Hawke as primary antagonist Arthur Harrow, Gaspard Ulliel as Midnight Man and May Calamawy in an undisclosed role. Moon Knight hails from The Umbrella Academy series developer Jeremy Slater, with Mohamed Diab leading the directing team that also includes Synchronic duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead.
Moon Knight revolves around mild-mannered gift-shop employee Steven Grant who suffers from a sleep disorder leading to various blackouts and memories of another life. He eventually learns his real identity is that of Marc Spector, a mercenary with dissociative identity disorder who is drawn into a deadly mystery involving Egyptian gods and becomes the conduit for moon god Khonshu. After nearly three years of development, Moon Knight is gearing up to hit Disney+ this March as part of Phase Four of the MCU.
The latest episode of Variety's Actors on Actors series saw Oscar Isaac and Jared Leto uniting and discussing their upcoming superhero ventures. In reflecting on the development of his series, Isaac teased that Moon Knight goes in weird directions, crediting it being a TV show for helping the team make riskier creative decisions. See what Isaac shared below:
"There was a lot of room to try stuff because there wasn't the pressure that we got to make sure we make however many hundreds of millions of dollars on the opening weekend. So we could make it very point-of-view. We could make very weird decisions. At the moment, at least — and I don't imagine it's going to go backwards — it feels like that's where more of the risk is being taken because it can, financially."
The character of Moon Knight had seen multiple attempts in the past to come to the screen prior to the MCU series, including the planned Blade: The Series season 2 that was ultimately scrapped and a James Gunn-pitched film that he didn't have the time to develop himself. As Isaac notes, the studio's decision to bring Moon Knight to the MCU in a limited series is likely the better option for exploring the stranger and more riskier corners of his comics, including the character's struggle with dissociative identity disorder. The first Moon Knight trailer offered some glimpses into how the series would explore his DID, hinting at multiple blackouts in the midst of action scenes and hearing a variety of voices in his head.
In addition to his DID, the Moon Knight trailer hinted at the more supernatural aspects of the comics getting their proper light in the MCU, including the final shot of the titular character beating down what appears to be a werewolf-like creature. Given Moon Knight's apparent horror influences in favor of the lighter nature of other MCU shows, it would require riskier creative decision-making and commitment on both the creators and Marvel's parts, something that a series could prove to be better for return than a high-budget feature film. Only time will tell if these choices pay off for all involved when Moon Knight premieres on March 30.
Source: Variety
