Oscar Isaac Will Play Marvel’s Moon Knight
Oscar Isaac will be portraying one of the strangest Marvel heroes ever, Moon Knight.
This article is more than 2 years old
Oscar Isaac is one of the most mercurial actors working in Hollywood today. You can’t pigeonhole him into one particular type of role. That might have been one of the deciding factors that has led him to playing one of the strangest and most multi-faceted heroes in the entire Marvel canon.
According to Deadline, Oscar Isaac is in negotiations to play the lead part of Marc Spector in Moon Knight, an upcoming series that will debut on the streaming platform Disney+. The series has been rumored for a long time, with high profile actors like Keanu Reeves being rumored for the part. However, it looks like Marvel Studios has decided to go with Oscar Isaac in the role of the vigilante character.
There will definitely be a lot for Oscar Isaac to chew on with the role of Marc Spector/Moon Knight. The character is often derisively referred to as a Marvel ripoff of Batman – both characters are rich playboys who beat up bad guys at night – but Moon Knight is much more complicated and kind of terrifying. The character is a former mercenary who becomes the chosen conduit of the moon god Khonshu, who is often portrayed as a malevolent force in Spector’s life.
In recent incarnations, Moon Knight has been portrayed as a character with DID – dissociative identity disorder, or what use to be referred to as multiple personality disorder. If this is the route the Moon Knight television series goes, this means that Oscar Isaac will actually be portraying a number of different characters that embody the same person. That sounds extremely tantalizing for an actor, and it recalls the excellent performance from James McAvoy in Split. Imagine a character like that but one that wants to be a crime-fighting vigilante at night.
What is going to be interesting to see is how the Moon Knight series is going to approach its tone. As a show on Disney+, there is some expectation that the character and show won’t go to some of the darker places the comics have explored in recent years. However, two iterations of Moon Knight that might influence the direction of Oscar Isaac’s take on Marc Spector will likely be the Warren Ellis/Declan Shalvey run from 2014 and the Jeff Lemire/Greg Smallwood run from 2017. Both of these are considered great modern interpretations of the character, and it would be very cool to see such unorthodox approaches to the story make their way to a television series.
Or it is possible that the Oscar Isaac version of Marc Spector/Moon Knight will try to better fit in with the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The character is often kept very separate from the rest of the Marvel stable of characters in the comics, but the Brian Michael Bendis/Alex Maleev run from 2011 tried to portray how Moon Knight would function with the larger Marvel universe. Considering that Disney (and audiences) seem to really enjoy the interconnectivity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this might be the version they draw more directly upon.
Regardless, this is exciting news as Oscar Isaac is a fantastic actor and Moon Knight is a character that deserves a real turn in the spotlight. Once we learn any more substantial news about this new project, we will let you know as soon as possible.
