Moon Knight Director Blasts Another DC Film, Calls It A 'Disgrace'

Director Mohamed Diab's recent project for the MCU is Moon Knight, which will premiere on March 30, in Disney+. The upcoming Marvel series will follow Marc Spector's disassociative identity disorder and accidentally stumbled upon an Egyptian god, Khonshu, who will be the source of his power. Moon Knight will also be the first-ever series set to introduce Egyptian mythology and creatures to the MCU.

Another comic book adaptation mentioned is Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman 1984, which was released in December of 2020. The highly anticipated sequel of the Wonder Woman film was faced with harsh criticism from critics. One questionable element of the Wonder Woman sequel was the depiction of Egypt, specifically at one scene where villain Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) travels through a Middle Eastern country ending up in a high-speed vehicle chase that ends with Wonder Woman swooping in to save two Egyptian children.

Now, Moon Knight director sat down with SFX Magazine to talk about how the Marvel show accurately incorporated Egyptian culture into the upcoming series. While talking about Moon Knight, the director took the time to criticize DC's Wonder Woman 1984, specifically its poor portrayal of Egypt, which he called a ''disgrace.''

The director explained, "In my pitch, there was a big part about Egypt, and how inauthentically it has been portrayed throughout Hollywood’s history. 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." Diab added.

Wonder Woman 1984 isn't the only DC film that the director criticized. Just a few days before his Wonder Woman comments, the director had also expressed annoyance with the upcoming Dwayne Johnson film, Black Adam. The director claims that DC's Black Adam lacks Egyptian actors and representation in a movie theme that is completely tied to the country's culture. Now that Diab has aimed at another DC film for lacking Egyptian talents and wrong Egyptian representation, DC has to address these issues.

For Mohamed Diab's Moon Knight, aside from focusing on Marc Spector's mental health issue, one relevant element of the series is its respect and honor to Ancient Egyptian mythology and lore. Hopefully, Oscar Isaac's upcoming Moon Knight will portray an accurate depiction of Egyptian culture and tradition, which Egyptians can be proud of.

Moon Knight will premiere in Disney on March 30, and Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman 1984 is streaming on HBO Max.

Also Read: Moon Knight: Marvel Production Team Got Confused with Oscar Isaac's Distinctive Performance