Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight series has snagged additional directors.
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, indie genre filmmakers behind sci-fi horror movies The Endless and Synchronic, are joining Mohamed Diab, the Egyptian filmmaker behind Middle Eastern drama Clash, as directors of the series that will star Oscar Isaac.
Diab is directing a sizeable chunk of the episodes. Umbrella Academy’s Jeremy Slater is leading the writer’s room. It is understood that Benson and Moorhead will direct several episodes.
Moon Knight is one of Marvel’s cult characters who has had several different takes since his debut in 1975’s Werewolf by Night #32. He is Marc Spector, an ex-Marine turned mercenary whose multiple alter egos allow him to better fight crime. These alternate personas include cabbie Jake Lockley and millionaire playboy Steven Grant.
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In the later comics, he was established as being a conduit for the Egyptian moon god Khonshu, while recently, he was a consultant who dresses in all white and goes by the name Mr. Knight. Most writers who have tackled Moon Knight in recent years have depicted him as a character with multiple personalities and a fractured mental state.
The show is expected to begin shooting in Budapest starting in March.
Benson and Moorhead, who sometimes do all the lifting on their movies from writing to acting to directing and producing to shooting and editing, earned raves and a following on the film festival circuit for low-budget horror movies beginning with 2013’s Resolution.
Their 2014 movie Spring premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and made Guillermo del Toro a fan of theirs while Endless, about brothers returning to a UFO cult they escaped from years before, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival to strong notices (The Hollywood Reporter called it a “rich banquet of mind-bending weirdness.”). Their latest was Synchronic, a sci-fi thriller that starred Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan and bowed at 2019’s TIFF before being released last year.
The duo also produced Amy Seimetz’s psychological thriller She Dies Tomorrow, which Neon released in 2020.
Benson and Moorhead are repped by CAA and XYZ Management.
