In a recent interview, Moon Knight head writer Jeremy Slater brought up how the series was pitched to Kevin Feige in order for Marvel Studios to green-light and produce the project. The writer discussed the challenges with the character often being compared to Batman and a lack of originality that may come from producing a series like Moon Knight if done inadequately.
That’s always been a little bit of a Moon Knight problem is, in the wrong hands, he’s just a sort of Batman clone with a pallet swap and Batman’s got an 80-year head start on us. It’s very easy to do something that would just feel super derivative.
Jeremy Slater
With that in mind, it was certainly important for Jeremy Slater to track down what original elements would best thrive when developing this series. When discussing Moon Knight with other people working within Marvel Studios, they provided insight into what specific factors to focus on when Slater would pitch the project to Feige.
They gave us this and they’re like, ‘Look, he loves the mental health aspect. He loves the dissociative identity disorder and he’s really drawn to the Egyptology. He likes the Jeff Lemire run, the idea that you could be on the bus and look out the window and see an Egyptian god standing on the street corner.’ That was something Kevin [Feige] sort of identified early-on of like, ‘Okay, well, that’s interesting. That’s unique.’ That’s kind of all the information I had going in.
Jeremy Slater
All of the factors that were presented in the pitch were critical in making Moon Knight stand out as an original series. The influence of Jeff Lemire’s notable run with the character is very noticeable in the blend of the normal world with grandiose Egyptian mythology. As well, the series spending time in dealing with the Dissociative Identity Disorder of the protagonist helped prevent the show from being labeled as derivative of any Batman adaptations. Overall, it provides an insight into Marvel Studios’ focus into producing original stories within the field of the superhero genre.
Source: Comicbook.com
