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‘I could have done the action 10 times better, but in less time’: The director of a hit MCU series stuck in renewal stasis wishes it was a movie

You don't get this kind of frankness very often.

moon knight
Image via Marvel Studios

One of the most infuriating things about TV – and streaming in general – is when the key creatives go out of their way to try and convince people they haven’t made a series at all. Secret Invasion director Ali Selim was the most recent Marvel Cinematic Universe alum to fall into the trap, but Moon Knight‘s Mohamed Diab seems to have an altogether different opinion.

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Despite receiving rapturous acclaim from critics and audiences alike, nobody has the foggiest idea whether or not Oscar Isaac will return for a second season of supernatural adventures, not ideal when it’s been a year and a half since Moon Knight‘s sixth and final episode aired.

Oscar Isaac as Marc Spector in 'Moon Knight'
Image via Marvel Studios/Disney Plus

Maybe Marvel should just hand Diab a feature film to follow it up with, seeing as the filmmaker appeared to intimate in an interview handed to The Cosmic Circus after being translated by Arabic Marvel, that he’d have preferred to have made a movie in the first place.

“I wished this would happen. Firstly, I’m a cinema director. The difference between it and television is that in cinema, I work for two years, focusing on 120 scenes by myself. Each scene becomes something I memorized, understood, digested, and lived. On television, I made a thousand scenes, no matter how much I studied, there were days it was all a blur. That’s normal. Secondly, production, my budget was above $150 million, the same as a movie budget. But the budget in the action was spread over six hours instead of two. So, I could have done this action ten times better, but in less time. At that time, it was [one of] the most expensive series in human history. Every day I would tell them, “this isn’t enough.”

While we can’t be sure of the unimpeded accuracy of the translation, it’s an openness and frankness that you don’t hear from the MCU’s filmmakers very often. If season 2 doesn’t happen, then maybe Moon Knight should simply return in his own standalone blockbuster instead, which would keep Diab both on board and happy.