With Marvel’s newest series, Moon Knight, now streaming on Disney+, I recently got to speak with director Mohamed Diab about making the series. During the interview, Diab talked about going into Marvel with his wife and a 200-page pitch, how Moon Knight holds the record for the least amount of additional photography in the history of Marvel, how they designed the two Moon Knight costumes worn in the series, deleted scenes, and if he’s heard about Moon Knight Season 2,
If you are not familiar with the series, Moon Knight follows Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac), a mild-mannered gift-shop employee at a London museum, who becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life. Steven soon discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with mercenary Marc Spector, a former U.S. Marine whose been given supernatural abilities by the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. As Steven and Marc’s enemies converge upon them, they must navigate their complex identities while thrust into a deadly mystery among the powerful gods of Egypt.
Moon Knight also stars May Calamawy (Ramy), Gaspard Ulliel, and F. Murray Abraham as the voice of Khonshu. The series is directed by Diab (episodes 1, 3, 5 and 6) and Synchronic duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (episodes 2 and 4). It's produced by Feige, along with Grant Curtis, Tommy Turtle and Jeremy Slater.
Check out what Mohamed Diab had to say in the player above and below is exactly what we talked about.
COLLIDER: Had you talked to Marvel about other things prior than Moon Knight? How did you guys actually hook up?
MOHAMED DIAB: I made small Egyptian films. And then my films went to big festivals, Cannes and Venice. You have your agents looking for projects for you. I've been known to be Mr. No, mostly say no to most of the projects, but once they sent me this project, I was hooked. This is what I'm looking for. It's a big budget thing, but in the same time, it's what I cared about is the intimate story. The story of Marc and Steven is something fascinating.
I would've done it without action in it. I don't care. I love that. I felt this is an extension of my movies. And if I put my formula, if I put something that is grounded, the way I'm imagining do the action, the darkness that I can bring, I can add something to the table.
And me and my wife put a pitch, 200-page pitch. My wife, Sarah Goher is my partner, my co-writer. She's a producer now on the show. The moment we were done with the pitch, we looked at each other and I told her, "Sarah, we're going to get that job, or something is wrong with the world." Because it's not just, we covered everything, because we covered the locations, the tone, the music, the score, the action, how we see Egypt, how we see every location and even how to develop the characters.
But it's like, we clicked with the project. It's not just covering stuff. It's just that we knew that we are the best people to tell that story. In a lot of other cases, and that's why maybe I didn't apply to other jobs, I didn't feel the same thing. In this one, I felt that. And ironically enough, that pitch became the bible for the show. It is the show today. So one day I'm going to share that pitch. You would be amazed two years later before it, and it's exactly the show. Some even imagery wasn't in the show and we've put it in the credit scenes.
I was going to save this to the end. But since you were so passionate about bringing this to life, I just have to ask you, have you talked to Marvel about doing a second season? Is doing more, something you're interested in?
DIAB: I want to let you in a secret. Marvel is so secretive that what's your experience is what my experience is. I know nothing. And sometimes you ask yourself, "Did I do a bad job?" But I think this is the way they do it. Thank God they love the show.
They keep expressing every day, how much they love the show, but it's not like any other show, meaning on the other show, outside the Marvel universe. Meaning any TV series, if it's good, you know that you're going to get a second season, but one WandaVision was great. And you didn't get a second season, you went to something else. So what I'm absolutely sure of that Moon Knight is staying, staying for a long time, in my opinion. That's just a prediction. He's so interesting that I think he's going to stay, but what's going to happen next? Is he going to be a another season? Is it going to be a film? Is he join someone else? My guess is yours.
I've heard this from every director. Coming in from the outside, someone who has not worked with Marvel before, what surprised you about working with them on this series that perhaps you weren't expecting?
DIAB: Well, couple of things. First of all, I never expected that someone like Kevin (Feige) is going to be that hands on. What he's doing is almost genius. I can't wrap my head around it, someone who's overseeing 20 projects in the same time. And if you ask him if about a word in drafts that we keep changing almost every week, he knows what changed. This is how he is. So being hands on, which is very helpful.
Because if you are working with them, you have to know that those guys have the most successful run in the history of this industry ever. So they have secret sauce. You have to know that you are here for a reason. You have secret sauce too. So the two of you together can bring something. But being hands-on was surprising, giving me a chance to play with something like this IP because I pushed the envelope.
I wanted to push it. I wanted something that usually wouldn't think that they want, which is I wanted it to look and feel different than every other MCU project, which eventually is the case. And today you might say, some people keep telling me, if there's no Marvel logo at the beginning of episode one, you wouldn't necessarily know that this is a Marvel show, which is something I'm proud of. And I'm proud of how we deleted the idea of any crossovers, and we didn't have need crutches. We stood on our own, and the project ... Maybe that's the surprise, rather than a crossover, that we can stand on our own.
Yeah, that's probably my favorite thing about the MCU is that they keep on reinventing what's possible in this universe. And it's one of the reasons I think people love it.
DIAB: By the way, just like someone who's watching from afar, every two, three years, if there's something that is slightly doubtful of what the project is going to be, ah, this is the superhero fatigue I'm waiting for the fall. And all of a sudden, those guys know how to turn it around and reinvent themselves. I think hiring someone like me is part of that. Hiring like Oscar, hiring someone like Ethan, names that you wouldn't associate with a project like this.
But I want to tell you that if you felt that this is a different project it's because of all those people, because of me, because of Ethan, because of Oscar, because of every collaborator that felt to me, that is the right person. Because of my Egyptian composer, you know what I mean? Like Hesham Nazih. Every one of them brought something because of the Egyptian songs that my wife picked one by one. And I think it's a great intro to Egyptian culture.
The episodes are longer than some of the other MCU shows. Did you end up with a lot of deleted scenes?
DIAB: It depends on the episode, but definitely there are deleted scenes, but not as much as you think, because we were ... We hold the record of being the least amount of additional photography in the history of Marvel. So usually, there's additional photography. We have the least amount of additional photography, four days.
That's nothing.
DIAB: It's nothing. Absolutely. I think part of it was that Marvel allowed us to do this thing when we meet every week and sometimes before even shooting, we did it, table reads. It was us and the writers and all the talent, Sarah, Grant, our great executive producer. All of us read the script, and everyone chips in, and everyone turn every stone. So in a way, we did the job that usually is done at the end, which is Marvel never leaves a film bad. Even if they're going to re-shoot the whole thing, they don't care. So we tried our best to help from the beginning. And I think that helped a lot.
Can you talk a little bit about designing Moon Knight's costume? There are two versions, obviously, but can you sort of talk about how you wanted it to look and feel and like that?
DIAB: Ironically, we started with Steven having Moon Knight and Marc having Mr. Knight, ironically, but that's one of the best thing about taking your time and developing things. You start realizing no, no, no, this costume is for this guy. This is what works for them. And we realize what's the logic.
The logic should be that each one of them inspires his suit. So the suit is inspired by who you are, or what you love, or what's your imagination of a suit. That's why Steven who's completely away from the superhero world, his cool thing is when they tell him summon the suit, it's a suit. It's an almost Armani suit. So it made sense. But I loved that he had two suits and the one that we worked even more on was the Moon Knight suit.
I love how different it is from everything that we saw before in any superhero. But I think it tells a lot about the story. You can look at the suit and dissect, you can see the crescent in his, that he pulls. And it's a weapon. You see how he's mummified and the cape and the weaponry, and you see the hieroglyphs on him. It's just such an interesting thing.
And on the other hand, as a director, I was scared a lot more from Mr. Knight's suit because a white suit like that could look so bad on camera. And it could be silly and it could be weird. But ironically, the moment Oscar stepped in, we felt... it's very cool. And we actually try to think of moments that we can expand it even more.
On that note, I got to stop. I'm just going to say congrats, and I hope it's a huge hit for you guys.
DIAB: I want to thank you. I want to tell you that even the next two episodes, I'm sure they're not going to disappoint you. They're even crazier. I want to watch it one day, maybe with you. I know you're crazy enough to do that, but one day we can watch it on a big screen together, six hours.
Listen to me. I would do that in a heartbeat. I wish they-
DIAB: I'm sure.
I wish more of the Marvel series were shown on the big screen.
DIAB: One day. I'm sure.
Yeah. They're movie quality. You know what I mean?
DIAB: It's made like a movie, just so you know. There isn't a day that we call it a TV show. We call it a movie.
Anyway, we could keep talking. I can't wait to see the last two episodes. Thanks for your time.
DIAB: Thank you so much, brother. Thank you.
Moon Knight is now streaing on Disney+.