How Moon Knight Directors Benson And Moorhead Made Their Indie Horror Style Fit The MCU

In an interview with the New York Times, Benson and Moorhead were asked about their experience tackling a more commercial project like “Moon Knight” after years of directing strictly personal indie films. Though working in the MCU has its limitations, the filmmakers said that they were welcomed to impose their own vision onto the show. Moorhead elaborated:

“It isn’t that we have to erase our personality and work within the machine. What [Marvel] wanted from us was our voice. It comes out mostly in the visuals, because scripts are separate from direction, but we put a lot of ourselves into it. But your thesis is definitely correct. There’s by definition nothing more personal than an independent film.“

I mean, it’s hard to compare a personal passion project to boarding a series that has the plot, characters, and everything in-between already set in stone. But that’s precisely what makes “Moon Knight” an interesting change of pace for the filmmakers. Moreover, working on the series has given them “opportunities to work with collaborators we wouldn’t otherwise, which has expanded our creative worlds.” The inherently impersonal nature of working under the MCU can be balanced, too.