Tag: Marvel TV

New ‘Moon Knight’ Concept Art Reveals Ammit’s Alternative Designs

Not too long ago, we got a good look at some alternative designs for Khonshu, Moon Knight’s rather selfish Egyptian deity. The series gave us a good look at a few Egyptian gods, but the big stand out was the build-up to Ammit’s arrival. The crocodile goddess made her debut in the final episode and didn’t hesitate to suck in some souls of those deserving for crimes they haven’t even done yet. As it turns out, the Moon Knight villain may have almost looked entirely different.

Artist Jerad Marantz took to their personal ArtStation to release some early Ammit designs. As he highlights, this was very early in development before they probably finalized the character’s overall look. What is presented is much closer to her design from the Egyptian mythology, as Ammit is commonly portrayed more like a monstrous giant alligator with humanoid features, which is quite a departure from where the Disney+ series went.

There’s also a more humanoid alternative that also includes some elements that made it into the final design.

It’s always great to get a glimpse at what could’Ve been. Sadly, the post-credit sequence has pretty much ended any potential return of Harrow and Ammit, but given Egyptian mythology anything is possible. It would be great to get the monstrous version of Ammit out for vengeance on what was done to her, seeing her fall to become the very thing she was trying to stop. For now, we’re still wondering what the future has in store for Moon Knight before we can even expect a return of Ammit.

Source: ArtStation

May 12, 2022
Kevin Feige on Iman Vellani’s Influence on ‘Ms. Marvel’

Iman Vellani has the challenging task of taking on the role of Kamala Khan, Marvel’s first Muslim-American superhero. The character made headlines when she first was revealed back in 2014 and now Vellani will lead the new Ms. Marvel Disney+ show. While she’s a relative newcomer, she made quite the impression when she auditioned for the role.

It seems that she prepared a hand-written list of 50 questions regarding the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which she handed to Kevin Feige on the set of Ms. Marvel. It seems he still has kept the list to this day that includes “really granular stuff.” He goes on to compare her to Tom Holland and his passion for the franchise.

Much like Tom Holland and Peter Parker, Iman is a much bigger Marvel fan than we realized.
Kevin Feige

It’s great to see actors involved with the project share the same passion that not only fans do but the many people behind the scenes trying to bring the franchise to life. He highlighted that she also played an important part in giving her input as the show evolves.

She carries this Unabomber notebook with her everywhere, with scribbles and ideas. And why wouldn’t we want to hear them? Not just because she’s playing the lead, but because if she wasn’t playing the lead, she’d be commenting on the show online. So better comment before the show’s done, and try to incorporate the best of those ideas.
Kevin Feige

It certailny sounds like she was a bundle of energy during the Disney+ seris production, perfectly showcasing the same mentality that the comic’s Kamala Khan has. The way he described it is better she comments while they’re working on it is a sweet moment and we’ll see what ideas of hers made it into the final product once it aris in June.

Source: Empire Magazine via Twitter

May 12, 2022
‘Moon Knight’ Unused Concept Art Reveals Lemire-Smallwood’s Inspired Khonshu

Moon Knight may have some of Marvel Studios’ most creative designs as it pays tribute to the original comics while also adding some interesting details that make them pop in live-action. We just recently got a good look at some unused Mr. Knight designs that highlighted what may have been, but now Marvel studios’ Visual Development Supervisor, Jackson Sze, shared some amazing concept art that offers a look at a comic-accurate Khonshu.

https://twitter.com/jacksonsze/status/1524815527834595335?s=21

The design looks fantastic, as it’s heavily inspired by Lemire and Smallwood’s run with the character. We would often see him sitting in a chair with webs adding to the overall atmosphere. We did get to see Khonshu wear the iconic suit in Moon Knight‘s post-credit sequence but not in this haunting visual style.

Here’s hoping that the project gets a second season or even a film that further explores his psyche, especially if that means we get to see this design brought to life. Seeing how Khonshu has a grip over his life and Jake Lockley, it would add an interesting conflict to fully delve into his DID to create one of Marvel Studios’ most experimental projects.

Source: Twitter

May 12, 2022
Matt Lintz Gives Some Insight into Bruno Carrelli’s Role in ‘Ms. Marvel’

Matt Lintz was one of the first actors to join the cast of Ms. Marvel, following Iman Vellani’s casting in the Fall of 2020. Lintz, who will portray Kamala Khan’s best friend, Bruno Carrelli, has made a name for himself with key roles in The Alienist and The Walking Dead, where played Kingdom resident Henry over 4 seasons. Now he’ll be stepping into an even larger role as one of the most important characters in Kamala Khan’s circle and one of the first of her friends to become aware of her secret identity as the costumed hero Ms. Marvel. In an interview with Empire, Lentz gave fans a little insight into the character.

He really cares for Kamala. If you look at the comics, he has that sidekick feel. He’s the Q, the Alfred.

In the comics, Bruno and Kamala shared a very complicated friendship. While both of them certainly had romantic feelings for one another, they awkwardly danced around those feelings for quite some time. Instead, their relationship became a bit more focused on her superheroing, where Bruno, who has a genius-level IQ, helped not only to protect her secret identity-especially from her parents-but used his expertise in chemical engineering to develop a polymer he called “super snot” that helped Kamala’s Ms. Marvel costume stretch and grow with her embiggening powers.

With Rish Shah’s Kamran set to capture Kamala’s eye in the upcoming series, it’s likely that Lentz’s Bruno will find himself going through some of those same awkward moments his character experienced in the comics. What’ll be more interesting to see, however, is how his character applies his genius to Kamala’s new power set, which has been greatly adapted for the MCU.

Ms. Marvel begins streaming on Disney Plus on June 8th.

Source: Empire via Twitter

May 12, 2022
How Kevin Feige was Convinced to Produce ‘Moon Knight’ Series

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

May 12, 2022
Jeremy Slater Tried Referencing Popular Dracula Meme in ‘Moon Knight’

Before Moon Knight debuted on Disney+, the majority of internet users probably knew the character best from memes rather than comics. A few years ago, it became a trend for online jokesters to take obscure comic panels and alter the dialogue to have Moon Knight shouting explicit, shocking, NSFW statements at other Marvel characters. One of these altered images became a viral sensation. It featured Marc Spector’s Moon Knight screaming at the vampire lord Dracula, demanding that the “big f—-ing nerd” give him his money.

Speaking with Comic Book, Moon Knight head writer Jeremy Slater confirmed that he did, in fact, attempt to put a reference to this meme in the hit show. Unfortunately, the crudeness of the dialogue made it hard to fit organically into a relatively PG-13 series on Disney’s streaming service:

I tried so hard. The problem is you can’t say f-ck on Disney+. And so you have to do a really awkward bleep where something breaks right when they say it. But it also felt to have him sort of recreate any part of that meme, but not do the part that people liked the most, which is the sort of inappropriate cursing. It was just kind of shining a spotlight on the fact that we couldn’t curse.
Jeremy Slater

Luckily for fans, Slater doesn’t think this will be the last chance someone gets to bring the meme to life. Moon Knight leaves plenty of room for the character to return later on down the line, and the upcoming introduction of Blade into the Marvel Cinematic Universe could open the door for an actual confrontation between Moon Knight and Dracula to occur in live-action. The writer elaborates on the opportunity:

I still think there’s ways to get some of those memes in there. I’ve also said on the record that I would love to see Moon Knight going after Dracula at some point. And maybe Blade has that area staked out, no pun intended, but look, if Moon Knight goes after Dracula, I can assure you that someone will work that meme in there somewhere.
Jeremy Slater

Moon Knight is now streaming in it’s entirety on Disney+.

Source: Comic Book

May 12, 2022
‘Moon Knight’ Scribe On How Jake Lockley’s Absence, Relationship with Khonshu

Over the course of its 6-week run, Marvel Studios Disney Plus streaming series Moon Knight introduced audiences to Steven Grant, Marc Spector, Moon Knight, Mr. Knight and Khonshu, all of whom co-existed within the fractured mind of one man. Each episode of the series also built in teases to another one of Spector’s alters, Jake Lockley, but held off on delivering on those teases until the post-credit scene of the finale. In an interview with The Direct, Moon Knight writer Jeremy Slater explains why they held of on introducing Jake, his relationship to Khonshu, the potential future of the character and more.

As it turns out, Slater was aware right from the beginning that introducing Jake to the story would be too much to tackle in a short time:

My initial pitch to Marvel was that three alters, three personalities sort of clashing with each other over the space of six hours is going to be way too chaotic and hectic. That it’s possible to tell a story like this and build a really strong emotional bond between two people, between Marc [Spector] and Steven [Grant], and really make the audience care about that relationship. But once you introduce a third into the fray, it becomes impossible. Like, Steven’s sacrifice at the end of 105 wouldn’t have any sort of weight to it if he had Jake there to sort of console him.
Jeremy Slater

Slater went on to say that Jake’s presence would take the attention off of the series’ key relationship: the one between Steven and Marc:

So right from the beginning, I said [that] the first season could only concentrate on these two and we’ll find fun ways to tease the existence of Jake so that the fans recognize it. Marvel was really supportive of that approach right from the beginning. Then, in the course of our [writer’s] room, we started talking like, ‘what’s the best way to tease Jake? What’s going to really get the audience about a potential season two, or a movie, or another appearance down the line.
Jeremy Slater

In the comics, Jake has always been willing to do some dirty work, more so than Spector’s other alters. While that’s what we see of him here, Slater is quick to caution the fanbase from judging him too quickly on one act:

The idea of bringing in Jake [Lockley], and not having him be evil, because I don’t—I’ve seen people on Twitter unhappy that they think Jake is sort of falling into sort of the evil-alter trope that you see in movies like Split and things like that. From my perspective, we don’t know nearly enough about Jake to make a determination like that… ultimately, whoever takes over the reins of the story next gets to decide that, but [also] from my perspective, the interesting question about Jake is, what is his relationship with Khonshu? Why is he so willing to do these horrible things in service of Khonshu. Why is he the one guy who sort of believes in Khonshu’s mission? What does he know that our heroes don’t? I think there’s a lot of questions like that that haven’t necessarily been answered.
Jeremy Slater

Slater continued, arguing that “Jake is bad” would be the LEAST interesting thing that could be done with the alter:

I think that making Jake a generic evil guy would probably be the least exciting, or least interesting, direction to take that character in the future. So, I have no idea where Jake goes from here, and which writers and directors will bring him to life, but, I think there’s a lot of potentials. I think we’ve only teased the existence of this character at this point. We kind of still don’t know anything about him… I don’t think he’s evil. It’s Marvel’s decision, not mine, but I think calling him evil would be a mistake at this stage in the game.
Jeremy Slater

As Slater points out, and as is often the case with MCU writers, while he’s put a lot of thought into developing Jake, the next steps for the character are out of his hands. At this point, with Moon Knight’s next appearance still undetermined or unannounced, fans can’t even be sure they’ll see Jake again. Let’s hope if we do, whoever has taken over for Slater shows the same care for the character.

Source: The Direct

May 12, 2022
‘Ms. Marvel’ Star Iman Vellani Addresses the Changes to Her Character’s Powers

Marvel Studios is gearing up to bring one of the comics’ most beloved newer characters to the small screen in next month’s Ms. Marvel. The series is set to showcase Pakistani-American Kamala Khan as the titular character, who is played by actress Iman Vellani. The teenage hero takes on the mantle of Ms. Marvel, inspired by her adoration for Captain Marvel, after she discovers she has superpowers.

In the comics, Khan is an Inhuman who exhibits her embiggening and super-stretchy abilities after inadvertently being exposed to Terrigen Mist. Fans have been particularly divided about the fact that the character’s origin and power set are being drastically altered for her live-action adaptation. For one, the character is not Inhuman. But her new powers are cosmic-based, and she appears to be able to project energy rather than have any shapeshifting abilities. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and comics creators have endorsed the power changes, mostly citing Khan’s newfound potential to be more connected to Captain Marvel and Spectrum in the upcoming The Marvels movie. Now, star Vellani herself has weighed in on the changes in an interview with Empire. She stated:

I’m very possessive [of Kamala]…I think we stay true to what the comics brought. The themes have always been about identity and about marrying the 50 million things that make Kamala. For all I care she could shoot sausages out of her fingers, as long as she still goes on that self-discovery journey.
Iman Vellani

It is not particularly shocking that those involved in the series are wholeheartedly backing the changes. While major changes to comics characters always spark debate, many see Khan’s shape-shifting powers as integral to her character and journey as a teenage girl trying to find her own identity in a world where her background sets her apart from most of her peers and role models. Those working on Ms. Marvel are certainly trying to convince fans that the changes to Khan’s powers do not jeopardize that journey.

Fans still have almost a month to wait before they can truly have an informed opinion on the matter, as Ms. Marvel premieres June 8, 2022 on Disney+.

Source: Empire via Twitter

May 12, 2022
‘Moon Knight’ Ally Frenchie Was Nearly More than an Easter Egg in the Series

Over the course of his Marvel Comics’ appearances, Marc Spector has traditionally chosen to keep his circle fairly small. Among those in that circle, there’s been very few constants, but Jean-Paul Duchamp, a fellow merc who has been buddies with Spector before his days as the Fist of Khonshu, is one of them.

Over the years, Duchamp, who Spector calls “Frenchie”, became an integral part of Spector’s work as the Crescent Crusader and when word broke the Marvel Studios was developing a Moon Knight series, comic fans expected he’d be among the supporting characters helping out Oscar Issac’s Lunar Legionnaire. Unfortunately, however, other than a tiny Easter egg, Frenchie was nowhere to be found in the series. According to writer Jeremy Slater, in an interview with Comic Book’s Adam Barnhardt, the lack of Frenchie wasn’t because of a lack of interest in using the character.

There were times where we had versions of Frenchie in the show. Because you look at it, Frenchie doesn’t make sense for those first two episodes because they’re all in London, they’re all from Steven’s perspective. And then we knew that once we were going to Egypt, we had to get them in the tomb pretty fast. And once wearing that final battle in the last two episodes, we’re spending most of that in the Egyptian underworld.
Jeremy Slater, via Comic Book

So with Frenchie crossed off the list for the early episodes and the later ones, it didn’t leave him much room at all, as Slater explained:

So we knew episode three was really the only chance we had for a Frenchie cameo. And it kind of wound up of him just being a pilot just flying them in. And it felt like a bad use of the character. Like it wasn’t a cool or memorable version of Frenchie. It was just sort of like, ‘Oh yeah, he’s the pilot in the background.’ So we made the decision of like, when we do Frenchie, let’s do him right. Let’s give him an actual role and an actual character and something to do in the storyline. So I think teasing his name on the phone was our way of letting Frenchie’s fans know like, ‘Yes, he exists in this world. He definitely has some sort of business relationship-partnership with Marc.’ And hopefully that is something we get to explore in future stories.
Jeremy Slater, via Comic Book

Frenchie fans can take solace in the fact that Slater was actively looking to do the character a solid by giving him a chance to matter. Whether or not he’ll get that chance down the road is no certainty, however, as Marvel Studios is being very secretive about the future of Moon Knight. Here’s hoping we see Duchamp flying the Mooncopter somewhere down the road.

Source: Comic Book

May 12, 2022
‘Moon Knight’ Writer Speaks Out on Blade’s Rumored Appearance in the Series

In the months leading up to Moon Knight’s streaming debut, the level of secrecy around the project remained impressive. Very few accurate leaks made their way off the set of the series, but there were plenty of wild rumors about characters that would appear in the show. Daredevil, Bruce Banner and Blade were all, at one point or another, mentioned by “scoopers” as potential guest stars on the show; however, as it turned out, not only did none of those characters show up, no other pre-established MCU characters did, making Moon Knight one of Marvel Studios’ most self-contained projects to date.

With so much information out there, it’s hard to know what to trust and what to ignore. More and more often, Marvel Studios creators are being asked to help fans sort through the rubble of rumors. In an interview with Comic Book, Moon Knight writer Jeremy Slater did just that. According to Slater, while Dane Whitman almost made an appearance in Marvel Studios Disney Plus streaming series Moon Knight, Blade was never in the mix.

We’re told in advance which characters are a little bit off limits. And I think at the time we were cracking Moon Knight, they were also kind of trying to crack the Blade story and try to figure out what that was. And so I think they wanted to keep them separately.
Jeremy Slater

As it turned out, there was no need for the Black Knight, Blade or anyone else to show up alongside Moon Knight in the series, given the very personal nature of the fight Oscar Issac’s character was taking on. And, of course, when he needed help, he found it in the form of May Calamawy’s Scarlet Scarab, an old comic hero that Slater and director Mohamed Diab gave new life as Marvel Studios’ first Egyptian superhero. Now that the first chapter of his Marvel Studios story has been told, it’s possible that Moon Knight could show up anywhere and team up with anyone and, given his dalliances with the supernatural in the comics, Blade is just as good a bet as anything.

Source: Comic Book

May 12, 2022