‘Moon Knight’ Show Runner Jeremy Slater on Rescuing the Character from a “Bargain Basement Batman” Fate

Marvel Studio’s Moon Knight series creator and show runner Jeremy Slater last stepped into the comic book realm with screenwriting duties on 2015’s ill-fated Fantastic Four reboot. It’s widely believed that the film needed the strong guidance of a producer such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Kevin Feige, and Slater tried for around 10 years to break into that world. When he heard Disney+ would begin offering a wide array of MCU series, he discovered this was his chance.

After being presented with a list of characters they were considering, Slater immediately gravitated toward Moon Knight, and the rest, as they say, is history.

“It’s monsters. It’s weirdness. It lives and breathes in the dark corners of the MCU, and I figured, with my past writing experiences, I would have a much better shot at getting that job as opposed to some of the other MCU shows that sort of operate in very different tonal territories,” Slater explained. “So that was the only one that I focused on and just went after it as hard as I could.”

That drive resulted in Marvel Studios and Disney+’s acclaimed Moon Knight, starring Oscar Isaac as the titular superhero who suffers from dissociative identity disorder (DID). Isaac essentially plays two characters: the adventurous Marc Spector and the mild-mannered Stephen Grant. As with WandaVision before it, the series honestly explores grief, trauma, and the various ways people can react to both set against a beautifully rendered Egyptian locale.

But one thing Slater wanted to make clear: Moon Knight is no Batman Junior.

“That was one of my big things coming in is. If you just do a cursory look at this character, he feels like a rip off. He has the cape and a cowl. He’s beating up muggers in alleyways. He’s flying moon cycles and moon wings, and he’s got a billionaire playboy alter ego. In the wrong hands, this feels like bargain basement Batman. I just wasn’t that interested in trying to do a super grounded vigilante story. I feel like they’ve been done well in the past, and I didn’t know what I could bring to the table versus looking at the Moon Knight comics, especially the Jeff Lumira run where it started to get into more psychological, trippy, weird head spaces. That’s something fresh and exciting. That’s something we haven’t necessarily seen before in this superhero space.”

Table stakes for the series involved bringing in dozens of experts on both Egyptian lore and mental health issues. Slater and director Mohammed Diab wanted Moon Knight to feel authentically grounded and inclusive considering its setting. The team had constant access to an Egyptian archeologist, a mental health expert to consult on DID, a rabbi for Judaism perspectives, and more specialists provided by Marvel Studios.

But it was Slater’s biggest concern to show respect and authenticity when portraying a character with DID. It could not feel cartoonish or inauthentic. The team recognized that the Moon Knight series itself could be seen as a vast metaphor for mental health, and they had to get it exactly right.

“You don’t know what state your viewers are in. You don’t know which of your viewers out there is hanging on by their fingernails. It was so important to me that whatever we put out into the universe has to ultimately be good,” Slater shared. “It has to have a positive message about mental health. I want those viewers to see this and feel empowered. I want them to see that the things that they view as challenges and hurdles can actually be potential sources of strength and courage. You want people to have a positive takeaway.”

So, what’s next for Moon Knight?

That all depends on where MCU guru Kevin Feige and star Oscar Isaac want to take the character.

“I think we told a very satisfying standalone story, but I definitely want to see more of Moon Knight and more of Oscar Isaac in the MCU. There’s just too much damn fun to put that toy back on the shelf, and never play with it again,” Slater gushed. “I would love to see a Moon Knight movie personally. I think he’s earned the right to graduate to the big screen. To see some of these visuals on a 50-foot screen would be phenomenal.”