Marvel Studios’ projects go through many changes, as they try to find the right way to pull some concepts together and create a cohesive story. We’ve heard in the past that bushman was almost featured in the Disney+ Moon Knight series, but they decided to move away from him due to too many comparisons to other characters. In an interview with The Direct, he goes on to highlight how the decision came to be, as well as the support that Marvel Studios gave them when moving away from the classic comic origin.
I mean Bushman was in my first couple versions of the script for sure, and we tried to have several different versions of him. Ultimately, I was the one to make the decision to ax Bushman. I went to Marvel and said I’m not comfortable with this, can we take him out and talk about different versions, and they were always really supportive.
Jeremy Slater
He highlights that it was his decision to not include the character, especially due to him believing he hasn’t aged well. In some regards, he’s a bit of a racial caricature. Not only that but to make him a formidable force, they considered turning him into an Avatar which could’ve complicated the story even more. Yet, they also considered adding other villains with powers at one point, such as Stained Glass Carlet and Zodiac.
And we really looked at all of the sort of classic villains. There was a couple that we talked about; Stained Glass Scarlet, and you know, Zodiac, and different characters like that. No one really kind of fit the parameters of the story we were telling, so we were just like, ‘You know what, can we just introduce a guy, and we’ll grab a name from some’—you know, they gave me a list of [like] every villain whose ever appeared in a Moon Knight comic. I just went through and went like, ‘Arthur Harrow, that sounds like a cool villain name, let’s go with that.’
Jeremy Slater
He goes on to highlight how supportive Marvel Studios was in letting them choose their villains and how to map out the story. So, they weren’t forced into a corner or had to abide by specific rule sets when tackling their adaptation of Moon Knight.
Marvel was really supportive about like, let’s figure out a villain that makes sense for the journey this character is on, and not try to shoehorn Bushman in, which would have very quickly turned the entire thing into sort of a revenge story. And it wasn’t a story that we were necessarily interested in telling.
Jeremy Slater
We definitely got an interesting villain with Harrow, which gave them an opportunity to also dive deep into the Egyptian mythology that made the character stand out in the first place, in addition to the complex character arc through his DID. While we don’t know what the future has in store, there’s some excitement to see what the future has in store fo the Fist of Khonshu.
Source: The Direct
