In a recent interview, Moon Knight director Mohamed Diab expressed his disappointment that Black Adam will make use of Egyptian iconography, but not feature actors from the country due to its fictional setting of Kahndaq. While the filmmaker acknowledged that the movie not taking place in Egypt explained that lack of authenticity on screen, he's less impressed with Wonder Woman 1984.
"In my pitch, there was a big part about Egypt, and how inauthentically it has been portrayed throughout Hollywood’s history," Diab said of his approach to Moon Knight. "It’s always exotic – we call it orientalism. It dehumanizes us. We are always naked, we are always sexy, we are always bad, we are always over the top."
"You never see Cairo. You always see Jordan shot for Cairo, Morocco shot for Cairo, sometimes Spain shot for Cairo. This really angers us. I remember seeing Wonder Woman 1984 and there was a big sequence in Egypt and it was a disgrace for us. You had a sheik – that doesn’t make any sense to us. Egypt looked like a country from the Middle Ages. It looked like the desert."
It's interesting to hear from Diab on this point, because what many felt was simply a cool action scene clearly had a lot of negative connotations. The Wonder Woman sequel received a mostly negative response from fans and critics, with its cheesy take on the 80s a sticking point. As a result, it's not overly surprising to learn that the 2020 movie ended up failing to portray an authentic Egypt.
As for how Moon Knight suceeds in that regard, the director added: "[It's] part of the show because it’s part of the comic book. It’s part of how he gets his powers. It’s ingrained in it. There was definitely room to play [in Moon Knight] but keep it as authentic as possible, in the realm of being fantastical. Even in the original comic books they did a great job of researching and trying to make Egypt authentic."
Marvel Studios has also released a new promo for the show which contains some fresh snippets of footage.
Moon Knight is set to premiere on Disney+ on March 30.