Moon Knight's thrilling season finale premiered on Disney Plus last week with an episode that showcased an epic showdown between the titular heroes and main antagonists. Now, creator and head writer Jeremy Slater has shared which other villains almost made an appearance in the show.
The Marvel Studios series follows Oscar Isaac as Marc Spector, a Jewish-American mercenary with dissociative identity disorder (DID). His character eventually becomes a conduit for the Egyptian moon god, Khonshu, as the multiple identities of Moon Knight fight for control of his body amid a war against the backdrop of modern and Ancient Egypt.
Before landing on Ethan Hawke's Arthur Harrow to be the main antagonist, Slater shared that many other villains, including Bushman, one of Moon Knight's main adversaries in the comics, almost played a role in the series. “I mean Bushman was in my first couple versions of the script for sure, and we tried to have several different versions of him,” Slater told The Direct in a new interview. “Ultimately, I was the one to make the decision to axe Bushman. I went to Marvel and said I’m not comfortable with this, can we take him out and talk about different versions, and they were always really supportive.”
Slater would go on to add that other, lesser-known villains such as Zodiac and Stained Glass Scarlet were almost considered for the series. But instead of cramming the six-part series with countless villains, Slater felt it was best to take many traits from those characters to come up with the character of Harrow. "We really looked at all of the sort of classic villains. There was a couple that we talked about; Stained Glass Scarlet, and you know, Zodiac, and different characters like that," Slater explained. "No one really kind of fit the parameters of the story we were telling, so we were just like, ‘You know what, can we just introduce a guy, and we’ll grab a name from some’—you know, they gave me a list of [like] every villain whose ever appeared in a Moon Knight comic. I just went through and went like, ‘Arthur Harrow, that sounds like a cool villain name, let’s go with that.'"
And it appears that Slater and the rest of the creative team made the right choice, as Hawke's compelling character turned out to be one of the many highlights of the series. For Hawke, getting the chance to play such a villain on Moon Knight made the actor a little hesitant at first, but from his love of comic books growing up to realizing the unique performance Isaac had cooking in him, he knew this was the perfect opportunity to really do something different.
Even if those other villains were not included, it's very likely fans will be getting a Moon Knight season 2, so there are plenty of opportunities for the lead hero to duel it out against new foes. The series also stars Gaspard Ulliel as Anton Mogart/Midnight Man, May Calamawy as Layla El-Faouly, F. Murray Abraham as the voice of Khonshu, Khalid Abdalla as Selim, and Lucy Thackeray as Donna.
Moon Knight is now available to stream on Disney Plus.
Source: The Direct