‘Moon Knight is complex character who is struggling with mental health issues,’ says executive producer

Starring Hollywood star Oscar Isaac in the lead, the new show introduces Marvel fans to mild-mannered Steven Grant, who discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with Marc Spector, a former mercenary and ruthless avatar of Khonshu, the Egyptian god of the moon and vengeance.

The Marvel Studios series, directed by Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Diab alongside Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, is currently streaming on the Disney+ Hotstar streaming service.

From the first look at the character, Curtis said that the character is quite different from the ones fans have seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), but there is also a similarity.

“Moon Knight is different because he is a very complex character who struggles with some mental health issues and has a very complex life that he tries to juggle, but in many ways he is very similar to other Marvel offerings in the past.

“I think one thing that people don’t always understand is that at the heart of every Marvel movie is a character study. Whether it’s a Peter Parker or Tony Stark character study or, in this case, Marc Spector and Steven Grant, the core of these are character studies,” he told PTI in an interview.

Curtis serves as an executive producer on the series along with Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige, lead star Isaac, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Brad Winderbaum, Mohamed Diab, and head writer Jeremy Slater.
The opportunity to explore these comedic characters is why popular Hollywood actors are also drawn to Marvel projects, he added.

“I think that’s why a lot of actors are drawn to these roles like Oscar Isaac or Ethan Hawke. These are character pieces that become action, adventure pieces a lot of the time, but at its core, it’s just searching into the soul of these incredible characters that were created by Marvel artists years, sometimes decades, ago,” Curtis said.

Curtis said the idea to make a series about the Moon Knight comic book character came from Feige, the main architect of the MCU money-minting franchise.

“It was really a conversation with the main man at Marvel, Kevin Feige. Kevin was like, ‘Hey, I want to do Moon Knight as a Disney+ series. And that’s really how my involvement began because I work at Marvel Studios and that was the project that I was lucky enough to be assigned.

“I fell in love with the character. Obviously, I knew the character before we started working on this, but I couldn’t really dive into the depths before starting this project. But once I started reading the comics and turning the pages… every page is a mystery. Just when you think you’ve figured out Moon Knight, you turn the page and everything you thought you knew, you realize you don’t,” she added.

The executive producer said that the show is a “globetrotting action adventure”.

“Marvel humor is inherent and evident in Moon Knight, just like it is in every other movie. I think it makes for a very rich tapestry of a series. And we’re excited to bring this to the world.”

When asked about a possible second season of the series, Curtis said the decision is solely up to Feige. “He is the master behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe and we’ll see where ‘Moon Knight’ lands. I think the way we left the show after the last episode is limitless. There are opportunities for the character to do whatever Kevin wants him to do. And I can’t wait as a fan to see what happens with ‘Moon Knight’ next,” he added.

Moon Knight also stars Ethan Hawke and May Calamawy. The show began streaming on Disney+ Hotstar from March 30 and is available in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and English.