Marvel’s first stab at a Moon Knight series was inspired by plenty of separate comic book stories from deep within the source material. There was the live-action introduction of Mr. Knight, one of the most popular uniforms the character’s ever worn. Then there was the introduction of the Ennead, the group of gods that largely oversee the rest of the Egyptian pantheon. In light of all that, the series still used an original villain in Ethan Hawke’s Arthur Harrow.
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While the character serves as a cult leader, similar to another Moon Knight nemesis named Sun King, the latter didn’t provide inspiration to those behind the series.
“I didn’t love the Sun King stuff that much. He was just never one of my favorite villains,” Moon Knight head writer Jeremy Slates tells ComicBook.com in a long-ranging interivew. “Harrow was obviously, was honestly inspired more by me trying to just say, ‘What is a bad guy who would have an emotional connection to this character,’ and so the idea of making him a former avatar clicked for me because it’s well, now there’s an emotional bond between the two of them.”
As Slater recalls, Harrow was largely first inspired by Harrison Ford and his role in the Indiana Jones franchise.
“When I introduced Harrow in probably the fourth or fifth version of the show, at that point Harrow at the time was sort of modeled on Harrison Ford,” Slater adds. “My idea was let’s tell a story of what happens if Indiana Jones went evil in the sort of twilight years of his life.”
Harrow then took on shape when Oscar Isaac told the creative team he thought he could get Ethan Hawke to board the series.
“Once the ball started rolling in that direction, Harrow very quickly sort of transitioned away from the sort of old Indiana Jones making some bad decisions,” Slater concludes. “And I think Ethan brought him much more in the direction of the sort of religious fanatic, the cult leader, the Jim Jones style Messiah figure. So it didn’t really have anything to do with the Sun King. It was much more Ethan Hawk’s involvement.”
Moon Knightย is now streaming in its entirety on Disney+.
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