Last month, Ethan Hawke signed on to play the lead villain in the upcoming Disney Plus series Moon Knight. The four-time Oscar nominee recently discussed the Marvel project while promoting his second novel “A Bright Ray of Darkness.”
Moon Knight tells the story of Marc Spector, a soldier who fled to the United States from Czechoslovakia during World War II. He becomes the god of the moon after surviving a near-fatal experience in an Egyptian tomb. Spector suffers from dissociative identity disorder. His personalities include a rich playboy Steven Grant, taxi driver Jake Lockley, and a god-like vigilante. The dark superhero was created by Doug Moench and first appeared in the 1975 comic, Werewolf by Night.
Egyptian screenwriter Mohamed Diab has been tapped to direct the Marvel series. The first season will be six-episodes and will be developed by The Umbrella Academy writer Jeremy Slater. Oscar Isaac is set to star as the title role. Meanwhile, the exact details of Hawke’s character are being kept under wraps, as Disney hasn’t yet announced whom the Training Day actor will play.
Over the past decade, Isaac has starred in numerous superhero and Disney-related films. He played Poe Dameron in the recent Star Wars trilogy as well as the villainous Apocalypse in X-Men: Apocalypse. Moon Knight is Hawke’s first superhero project and second TV show to date. He recently made his TV debut in the limited Showtime series The Good Lord Bird as abolitionist John Brown. The actor previously received attention for dismissing the superhero genre and stating that 2017’s Logan was overhyped and simply “a fine superhero movie.”
On a recent episode of The Ringer’s The Watch podcast, Hawke explained why he decided to join the Marvel Universe. “Well, it’s where I’m at as an actor,” said Hawke. "A lot of it, to be honest, I love the fact that Moon Knight is a lesser-known story and allows more creative freedom. The director is Mohammed Diab and he's a brilliant guy." Ultimately, Oscar Isaac was the reason he took on the project. “I find him [Isaac] to be a very exciting player in my field. I like what he’s doing with his life. He reminds me of the actors, when I first arrived at New York, that I looked up to. Oscar’s younger than me, and I like the way he carries himself, and I like the way he thinks. And in general, good things happen when you’re in the room with people that you like the way they think, right?"
Moon Knight is one of 14 new Marvel shows that will drop on Disney Plus. Marvel CEO Kevin Feige has stated that the future of the MCU will span across both films and television series. WandaVision, which centers on Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch and Paul Bettany’s Visions was released in January and has been the only MCU series released so far. That will soon change, as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki will be released on the streaming platform this spring.
Moon Knight is expected to be released on Disney Plus in 2022.
Source: The Ringer