Moon Knight Director Explains How the Character’s Obscurity Helped Make a Better Disney+ Show

One of Moon Knight‘s directors helped explain how the character’s obscurity helped make a better Disney+ show. ComicBookMovie spoke to Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead about the series. The duo believes that having an open canvas to paint on is an absolute strength of the Disney+ series. It’s not like no one has ever done a Moon Knight story before or anything. But, because audiences don’t have a pre-conceived notion of what the show is going to be, there’s a lot more room to work out what their interpretation of Steven Grant and Marc Spector is going to be. When asked about this dynamic, Benson thought it was a unique challenge for the creative team. One that really hadn’t been seen since Phase 1 of the MCU.

“Yeah, obviously, Jeremy Slater adapted this material and there’s something about being tasked with giving a comic book character’s origin story,” Benson revealed. “It’s so interesting, in the sense of, Moon Knight’s been around for 50 years, that’s actually a relatively young superhero, but it still requires, in 50 years, that the origin story be retold several times. That’s just comic books, that’s how they work. They don’t work in direct continuity.” 

“Can you imagine if Batman, created in 1927, is still alive somehow?” he laughed. “But, it really felt like Jeremy Slater really took the greatest hits of those 50 years and assembled something very special and very meaningful and very of our time. We became giant fans of every run of Moon Knight, but especially the Limire/Smallwood run, which we tried to capture the spirit of visually as much as we could.”

Marvel tees up Moon Knight like this on Disney+: “The series follows Steven Grant, a mild-mannered gift-shop employee, who becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life,” the synopsis reads. “Steven discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with mercenary Marc Spector. As Steven/Marc’s enemies converge upon them, they must navigate their complex identities while thrust into a deadly mystery among the powerful gods of Egypt.”

Are you happy with Moon Knight so far? Anything you would have like to see be different? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!