#Disney+ Taps Mohamed Diab as Moon Knight Director – /Film

Marvel’s Moon Knight series has found a director in Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Diab. The director behind Clash, a 2016 revolutionary drama that was an official selection at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard category, has been tapped to helm Moon Knight, the Marvel series for Disney+ starring Oscar Isaac as the titular mercenary with multiple alter egos.

Deadline reports that Mohamed Diab has been tapped to direct Moon Knight, Marvel’s latest TV series for Disney+.
Things appear to be moving quickly for the superhero series following reports that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker star Oscar Isaac was in talks to star as the title character, a psychologically unstable mercenary who may or may not have the ability to communicate with a lunar god that bestows the powers of super strength. Jeremy Slater (Umbrella Academy, Fantastic Four) was set as the show’s writer and showrunner last year, but now that the Disney+ series has an acclaimed star on hand, the ball seems to be rolling quickly on Moon Knight.

Diab is quite a prestigious get for Disney+, with the Egyptian filmmaker frequently earning attention at the film festival circuit. His 2010 directorial debut Cairo 678, which was released a month before the Egyptian revolution, was a breakout hit that was hailed as “a harbinger of that revolution,” with Diab establishing a name for himself as an urgent, prescient filmmaker. His 2016 film Eshtebak (Clash) was an official selection at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and was also selected as Egypt’s entry for the Oscar international feature. He’s also tried his hand in the action genre, writing the blockbuster Egyptian films El Gezeira (The Island), which is among the highest grossing Egyptian and Arabic films of all time.

Diab’s impressive resume aside, it appears with the filmmaker’s hiring that Moon Knight will be doubling down on the Egyptian roots of Moon Knight, who in the comics, is a conduit for an Egyptian moon god. Created by Doug Moench and Don Perlin and first appearing in the August 1975 issue Werewolf by Night #32, Moon Knight’s depictions have changed over the years, but he has more recently been introduced as an avatar of Khonshu, the Egyptian god of the moon, after being left for dead by his boss at an archeological dig site. Spector returns to the world of the living and develops multiple secret identities, including a millionaire named Steven Grant and a taxicab driver named Jake Lockley, becoming a vigilante whose super strength is directly tied to the moon itself.

When the series was first announced at Disney’s D23 Expo, Marvel head Kevin Feige referred to it as an “action adventure series” about a mercenary left for dead in the Egyptian desert. Moon Knight does not have a release date set yet, but expect the character to appear in MCU films after headlining his own show.

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