The Batman Comparison Marvel Would Like You To Stop Making
With "The Batman" finally in theaters, pulling in a sizeable opening box office over the weekend and drawing mostly positive reviews from critics and audiences alike, it's easy to forget that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is still chugging along with more steam than ever. "The Batman" didn't beat "Spider-Man: No Way Home" in opening weekend figures, and in 2022 alone, Marvel is releasing up to three Disney+ shows, as well as movie sequels for "Doctor Strange," "Thor," and "Black Panther." Meanwhile, "The Batman" seems to have solidified DC's new approach to films, bucking large shared universes in favor of standalone movies buoyed by directorial vision.
Later this month, Marvel fans will finally get to see the long-awaited Disney+ series "Moon Knight." Starring Oscar Isaac of "Star Wars" and "Dune" fame, the show follows a man named Marc Spector (among many other names), a marauder of the nighttime with the powers of the Egyptian moon god, Khonsu. If a guy dressing up to fight crime at nighttime sounds a bit familiar, especially to those who have read older Moon Knight comics, the head writer of "Moon Knight" would like you to know just how wrong you are and told fans what to expect when the show makes its debut at the end of the month.
Moon Knight is nothing like the Dark Knight, says show's writer
Though the Moon Knight of the comics has many similarities to Batman, from enormous personal wealth to a reliance on gadgets, "Moon Knight" writer and executive producer Jeremy Slater says, "It was never a comparison I was interested in making" (via Syfy). Instead of focusing on Moon Knight's Batman-esque qualities, Slater says he wanted the Disney+ series to run in the opposite direction, concentrating on the aspects of the character that make him unique. "Batman has an 80-year head start on us: you're not going to beat Batman at his own game. We've seen that side of Moon Knight as a playboy philanthropist, throwing moon-shaped boomerangs, flying around in a moon-shaped plane, but I don't think that's the coolest possible version of the character.
"Moon Knight" will instead focus on the psychological drama of Marc, a mercenary who suffers from dissociative personality disorder and is having visions of the Egyptian moon god Khonsu, who grants him a range of mystical powers. Unable to tell dreams from reality — and currently believing himself to be a man named Steven Grant, according to the trailer — Marc must fight to determine the truth of his own existence.
Instead of Batman, Slater said, "'Raiders of the Lost Ark' was actually my first reference when I pitched." In order to get the Egyptian culture and mythology right, Slater brought an archaeologist to work on the production. "He told us these crazy details. Like inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, there's a chamber that's inaccessible, but large enough to contain the Statue of Liberty. And no one knows what's in it. Those kinds of wild, real-life facts informed everything we wrote."
So when "Moon Knight" does hit Disney+ on March 30, expect a version of Indiana Jones, not the Dark Knight.