Moon Knight: Scarlet Scarab's Costume Came From Show's Unused Egyptian Gods

Moon Knight fleshed out a corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe viewers had yet to see. With the introduction of Oscar Isaac's Marc Spector, the series dove headfirst into the land of Egyptian mythology, balancing those timeless characters and gods with Marvel intellectual property. While Egyptian gods Khonshu, Ammit, and Taweret all appeared in the flesh throughout the series, there was a time when more gods were set to appear. In fact, the costume for May Calamawy's Scarlet Scarab was largely based on Isis, the Egyptian goddess of motherhood, magic, healing, and rebirth.

At one point, both Isis and Tefnut, the Egyptian god of rain, were set to appear in the series. Since Isis is typically depicted as a character with wings, the production chose to use that look for Scarlet Scarab and not double up.

"Earlier on in the show there were other gods that were going to be created, some amazing ones. Tefnut, and Isis was actually very cool as well," visual effects supervisor Martin Hill tells us. Hill oversaw a team at New Zealand's Weta FX, a vendor that works on virtually every Marvel Studios property.

Hill adds, "Isis had the wings that expanded out and a lot of Scarlet's design actually came from the Isis design with the wings.

As one might expect from superhero cinema in this day and age, Scarlet Scarab's wings were all digital, despite Calamawy donning a practical suit.

"There were certainly some shots where we had to replace her whole arms and stuff because she'd be doing a pose which was like, 'Okay, but if we add the wings to that, the wings would chop your other arm off sort of thing,'" he adds. "So, we needed to shift things around a little bit. But it was just really nice to get into that and having all those nice colors on the wings was a really nice thing to create. Yeah, I really hope she gets her own show actually."

Moon Knight is now streaming in its entirety on Disney+.

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