Over the last five weeks, Marvel has been all about its Disney+ series Moon Knight. The latest super-powered streaming title has taken MCU fans into the world of Egyptian mythology, as Oscar Isaac assumes the role of Marc Spector/Steven Grant, a hero who has been suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder. Isaac's Spector/Grant has gotten twisted into a world of mystery, as the two serve as an avatar for the ancient Egyptian god Khonshu.
Thus far, the series has seen its titular hero communicate with his multiple personalities, introduced villain Arthur Harrow (played by Ethan Hawke) trying to release the god Ammit, and even transported audiences into the afterlife.
It is still unclear how Moon Knight will wrap things up in its sixth and final episode, but surely Marvel Studios has a plan for Isaac's Spector and his love interest Layla (May Calamawy). Things could have looked very different though, or at least that is what one of the writers on the project has recently revealed.
Echo was Almost in Moon Knight
In an appearance on the Ringerverse's House of M podcast, Moon Knight head writer/executive producer Jeremy Slater revealed that Maya Lopez aka Echo (who recently debuted in Hawkeye) was nearly Marc Spector's love interest in the series.
Slater said that "Echo was going to be [the] love interest" for the sole reason that "Marvel liked the character... and was trying to find a show to put her in." However, the team found that she just "she didn't work at all for the story we were telling":
“At the time, Echo was going to be our love interest, solely based on the fact that they knew Marvel liked the character of Echo and was trying to find a show to put her in.”
It was good news though, as Marvel felt the same way, and thought she would "fit in a lot better" in Hawkeye, to which the writing team responded "Oh, thank God”:
“They were like, ‘You know what, we’ve got this Hawkeye show and we feel like she would fit in a lot better there…'”
And that is not all that was different in an earlier version of the Oscar Isaac-led Disney+ series. Slater also mentioned that Moon Knight comics mainstay “Bushman was initially going to be the main villain,” with the series culminating in a "big sort of avatar battle":
“Bushman was initially going to be the main villain. I thought he was going to be possessed by an Egyptian god by the end of it, and you’d have a big sort of avatar battle.”
The MCU writer finished things off by saying that "there were a thousand things that were radically different" from the pitch for the series, and that the above were just a few examples.
A Very Different Moon Knight
It is fascinating to hear what could have been in this weird alternate universe of Moon Knight. Imagine if this series was the first time that fans had seen Echo on screen in the MCU. Sure, the character has been associated with Marc Spector in the past, but she is way more closely tied to the Hawkeye circle of characters, so it made sense to have her first appearance there.
And that is not to say she will never associate with Moon Knight. She does have her own show coming up pretty soon, so that could be a cool place to at least introduce the two characters to one another.
Plus, Layla's character is so integral to what ended up making Moon Knight become the hero that he is, so to strip her out of that backstory would have perhaps lessened the impact of seeing this hero come to be.
Another interesting note is the Bushman mention in this interview. Bushman could have been an excellent main villain in Moon Knight, but seeing how similar the character on the page is to Black Panther's Killmonger, it makes sense that they bench him for now.
The series is also probably better off without this supposed avatar battle to finish off the show. Marvel has garnered quite the negative reputation for giant CGI battles to finish their projects (ie. Iron Man 1,2, and 3, Shang-Chi, and The Incredible Hulk), so to have possibly gotten one of those in Moon Knight would have been disappointing.
But that is not the version of Moon Knight that fans got. The one that ultimately did come to be has its sixth and final episode debuting on Wednesday, May 4 on Disney+.
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