Many an eyebrow was raised when the team behind Moon Knight said the upcoming Disney Plus series wasn’t part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and they reached Dwayne Johnson heights when Ethan Hawke said the disconnection to canon was a major reason why he was so eager to sign on.
Of course, Kevin Feige’s franchise doesn’t do standalone projects in the traditional sense, with every single film and television effort taking place in a single shared reality (or multiverse).
That means that the door is very much open to Oscar Isaac’s title hero meeting up with some familiar faces in the future, but his six-episode debut series will operate independently via the absence of overt connective tissue, cameos, or blatant name-drops.
Speaking to Inverse, executive producer Grant Curtis cleared up the canonical confusion, reaffirming that Moon Knight definitely dwells in the same narrative space as the rest of Marvel Studios’ output.
“Moon Knight is very much in the MCU. The observant viewer is going to hear and see those Easter eggs we drop that do explain that and confirm that. We looked at the very first comics he appeared in, in 1975, and we looked over the years of storytelling, over the decades of Moon Knight stories, [and asked] what are the themes and tones that we’re gravitating towards as storytellers? We never intentionally tried to make this standalone.”
On top of that, fellow EP and director Mohamed Diab teased that he could envision the cult favorite vigilante driving some of the MCU’s elder statesmen round the bend with his unusual behavior.
“I could see Marc and Steven driving the characters of the MCU crazy. Marc’s speaking to someone with complete seriousness, and suddenly he turns into Steven, or Moon Knight turns into Mr. Knight. I think it would be amazing.”
Isaac has been repeatedly teasing the Midnight Sons, but until that does or doesn’t happen, it’s up in the air as to which MCU stalwart he’ll end up crossing paths with first. One way or another, though, it’s happening.