Marvel’s Moon Knight series has been getting a lot of love from the people who have seen it. Some people are going as far as saying that it’s one of the best things that Marvel Studios has produced, which is pretty damn exciting! I can’t wait to finally be able to watch it for myself.
Showrunner Jeremy Slater originally pitched the Moon Knight series as a Raiders of the Lost Ark story set in the MCU, and one thing that the creative team set out to do during the development and production is study the work of director Steven Spielberg and implement aspects of his style in the series.
Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Resolution, The Endless, Synchronic) worked on the series with Egyptian filmmaker Mohammad Diab and during an interview with /Film, they talk about Spielberg’s influence on the Moon Knight series and the influence of other films.
Benson began by mentioning the 1966 Ingmar Bergman film Persona, and Spielberg’s War of the Worlds:
“We actually went to a lot of different things about people who are struggling with identity, but even as lofty as something like ‘Persona.’ In terms of the camera work, it was a bit of a combination of the legendary moving master shots that Spielberg does. Of course, as a filmmaker, you reference Spielberg and you think, ‘He’s a master for a reason.’ So we’re watching ‘War of the Worlds’ and seeing how he’s able to develop a wide into an insert into a closeup and all that. It’s not just, ‘Wow, how clever.’ What it does is it lets you establish character without cutting so much. That was something that was really important to us, and really important to Mohamed.”
While War of the Worlds was not Spielberg’s best film, I did love the action sequences that he directed in it. There’s that action scene where Tom Cruise is driving the van with his kids in the car… that scene blew my mind. I had never seen anything like that before. Spielberg certainly is a master of his craft.
Benson went on to mention Alfonso Cuarón and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki‘s camerawork in Children of Men as a source of inspiration, explaining:
“So we’re watching something like ‘Children of Men,’ which has very, very few cuts in it, and relating that to how we feel about the master shots that Spielberg puts together. And it all jived with the way that we wanted to present this, which is something that feels like it’s very subjective to Steven Grant and Mark Spector’s point of view. It’s always kind of being presented as he experiences it. And minimizing cuts is a really good way of doing that.”
Moorhead then mentioned a few more film inspirations for Moon Knight, saying:
“Also I’ll give you three more sort of references or titles that came up a lot on set, but unfortunately, we won’t be able to say exactly why, because we’d be ruining it for everyone. But I think it’s interesting to hear. ‘The Descent,’ ‘Free Solo,’ and the opening scene of ‘The Exorcist.’ They were all brought up a lot.”
I love that those films helped influence the series! They are all great films and I’m curious to see how all of these influences were utilized in making the series. You can actually find out right now and start your Moon Knight journey on Disney+ now! The first episode is live!