Marvel Studios’ series Moon Knight descends on Disney+ Hotstar

With an action-packed, mind-bending and globetrotting drama, Disney+ Hotstar is all set to launch an original live-action series Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight. Directed by Mohamed Diab and filmmaking duo Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, the series is laden with Egyptian mythology and iconography that feature a new genre of an MCU hero who is vengeful and complex. With its darker, mature themes, the series pushes the boundaries of the ever-evolving MCU storytelling with an intense, mysterious and thematically edgy series of events. Starring Golden Globe winner Oscar Isaac as the lead, it also features Ethan Hawke, May Calamawy and others. As the legacy of Marvel Studios gets carried forward with its latest series, discover these behind-the-scenes actions that went into bringing the show alive on screen.

Watch the newest Marvel Studios character on Disney+ Hotstar in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. 

Consultations with Egyptian archaeologists for an engrossing script

Marvel Studios made sure the writer’s room was stocked with research material to help Head writer, Jeremy Slater and his team. The team was regularly visited by an Egyptian archaeologist to get the right references to Egyptian culture and symbolism.

Marvel Studios’ first Arabian director

One of the directors of Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight, Mohamed Diab, is a talented Egyptian auteur, and is the first Arab director to direct a Marvel project.

Using experts to portray mental health themes accurately

For Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight, filmmakers got on board Dr Paul Puri, a board-certified psychiatrist, who is an Assistant Clinical Professor at UCLA and past president of the UCLA Psychiatric Clinical Faculty Association. Dr Puri consulted on the aspects of Dissociative Identity Disorder to help both the actors and the filmmakers understand the disorder and its implications.

Consultations with Egyptologists for production design

Production Designer Stefania Cella was adamant about reflecting ancient Egypt with as much precision as possible in the series’ sets. This led her to work collaboratively with two Egyptologists and an Egyptian supervising art director to make sure her designs authentically represented Egypt.

Building large-scale realistic sets in Budapest

The production team built large-scale sets on soundstages at Origo Studios in Budapest, Hungary.  The Origo Studios features 10 stages (8 soundstages, 2 VFX/multimedia stages) totalling 195,000 square feet and 10 acres of the backlot. With Hungary being a hub for filming period pieces, the team had ready access to several field-specific experts who specialized in, for example, ancient statuary, pottery and hieroglyphics. 

It took three months to build the statues of Egyptian deities

Designed following the Egyptologist's specifications and Marvel’s brief, the assiduous attention to detail of Stefania Cella’s designs meant that the construction of the sets was a massive undertaking. It took a team of sculptors, brought in from Stefania Cella’s native Italy, three months just to create the statues of the Egyptian deities that stand in the Chamber of the Gods, where much of the series’ action takes place. The Chamber itself was built on a huge 47,074 square-foot soundstage that was a height of almost three stories and was decorated with yellow hieroglyphs related to divinity.

Set designed to reflect duality and identity

Stefania Cella designed the set to symbolically represent Steven Grant as well. Her use of water on the set, and of similarly reflective surfaces in some of the other sets, recalls the series’ themes of duality and identity.

 An entire Egyptian exhibit was made from scratch

The museum scenes in the series required the team to create an entire Egyptian exhibit from scratch. The preparation and construction of this took the art department months to complete, filling the hall with hand-built columns, displays of the team’s curation and even a brand-new and fully stocked gift shop.

Recreating Brixton in Budapest

To recreate the street scenes of Brixton, a market street in Budapest was remodelled by changing signs. A curved street to match the one in Brixton was found and set designers dressed a restaurant to reflect Soho.

Dressing Arthur Harrow as a cult leader

Arthur Harrow’s look was inspired by cult leaders of the past and is simple, classic and elegant. The robe is made from linen fabric with a rust colour to show a richness against the sand colours and the neutral London colours. The costume is monk-like to give it a more worldly, international feel, complete with oversized woven sandals reflecting what a monk would wear. Harrow wears two bracelets with symbolism from ancient Egyptian art that represents death.

Tune into Disney+ Hotstar 30^th March onwards to witness Marc Spector embrace the chaos in Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight