Moon Knight has had plenty of interesting storytelling elements, but one of the most prominent is how the story delved more into the Gods of the MCU. It’s not something that has been touched upon as much as some would have assumed, especially given how there’s one within the ranks of the original Avengers. This time around, audiences get to meet Khonshu, the Egyptian Deity pulling Marc Spector’s strings.
On top of the Moon God, fans also got to lay eyes on several others, including Taweret, Ammit, and the entire Ennead. With all of these Gods entering the playing field, many might be thinking about how they may fare after Thor: Love and Thunder. Why? Well, because of the introduction of Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher.
The character has a knack for slaughtering Gods; in fact, it’s his entire crusade. Now Moon Knight has come to an end, audiences already know how there weren’t any references to the fourth Thor's upcoming events hidden in the series.
But were there ever any at some point in the process?
Former References to Thor: Love and Thunder
In an exclusive interview with The Direct's Russ Milheim, Moon Knight head writer and executive producer Jeremy Slater revealed how, at one point in time, the series had references to the events of Thor: Love and Thunder, namely to that of Christian Bale's Gorr the God Butcher.
When asked how much Chris Hemsworth's adventure factored into their breakdown of Marc's story, the writer noted how it was "both a lot and a little." Slater revealed that there "were different versions of the script[s]" which would reference the potential movie, something also fueled by how "Thor didn't necessarily have a concrete release date:"
“Both a lot and a little. But the reality is that we had no idea—when we started working on the show, we didn’t know when we were debuting. We always sort of assumed it would be later down the road, and we would sort of be coming out in fall of 2022, and we thought we would probably be following Thor[: Love and Thunder]. But at that time, Thor didn’t necessarily have a concrete release date either, everything was sort of up in the air, and it’s like we might be ahead of Thor, or we might be finishing up. So there were different versions of the script where the Gods would sort of talk about, ‘This thing with Gorr the God Butcher just happened, and now we’ve got this new problem.’ And then there were other versions of the script where they sort of talked about, ‘We’re hearing rumors [that] Gods are dying, this is not the right time to get involved.’ Like we tried to have our cake and eat it too.”
Slater went on to reveal that they "had versions of the story that teased Gorr's arrival, and [ones] that were sort of taking place in the aftermath of that movie," but ultimately "Marvel just made the creative decision" that they didn't need the reference either way:
“We knew the general beats of what would happen in Thor: Love and Thunder, so that we wouldn’t be contradicting anything. But we had versions of the story that sort of teased Gorr’s arrival, and [ones] that were sort of taking place in the aftermath of that movie. Ultimately at some point, Marvel just made the creative decision, ‘You know what, we don’t necessarily need this.’ The way that Ennead scene ultimately panned out in Episode 3, it didn’t feel like there was an organic place to sort of drop-in, like, ‘Oh, and by the way, this has nothing to do with the story we’re currently telling, but there’s a thing happening over here.’ I think Marvel is getting very smart about how they sort of work in those references and cameos, and they’ll do it if it makes sense. [They won’t] do it if they hurt the story, [so] they don’t do it just for the sake of doing it. I think that was a time where they felt like, ‘We’re stretching to make this connection, we don’t really need it.’”
Acknowledgments of Gorr Cut from Moon Knight
When someone is going around killing Gods, even catching Thor’s attention, one might think it would have been noticed by any and all Gods on Earth. So it makes sense that there would be alternate drafts of Moon Knight for this very reason—it would have needed to be addressed if the show came out afterward.
Based on how there was seemingly alternative dialogue mentioning the aftermath of Thor: Love and Thunder, at least it looks like Gorr The God Butcher won’t be entirely successful in his mission by the time the film comes to a close. Did Thor defeat him on Earth? Or maybe he simply diverted Gorr’s attention away from Midgard so that the remaining Gods on the planet would be safe.
It would only make sense that when the MCU eventually returns to Marc Spector’s journey, Gorr’s activities would come up in conversation at one point or another. Maybe they’ll take the route of having the aftermath of Chris Hemsworth’s film play directly into why the events of a second season are occurring in the first place.
Moon Knight is now streaming on Disney+, while Thor: Love and Thunder hits theaters on July 8.
