New Loki Season 2 Directors Tease Season 1 & Moon Knight Inspiration
Loki season 2 directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead reveal how season 1 influenced their MCU directing style. The duo began their career making a variety of well-received indie genre movies, including Resolution, Spring, and The Endless. After helming two episodes of Netflix's Archive 81, they made the leap to Disney+'s huge live-action MCU series with two upcoming episodes of Moon Knight. They have also been attached to direct episodes of Loki season 2, which is coming likely sometime in 2023.
Moon Knight is a six-episode weekly series that began airing today, March 30, 2022. It follows Oscar Isaac as mild-mannered, British shopkeeper Steven Grant, who has dissociative identity disorder and discovers he is an alternate personality of a hardnosed American mercenary named Marc Spector. This all comes to a head as they grapple with their role as the Moon Knight, a nocturnal avenger who is channeling the power of the Egyptian moon god, Khonshu. The series also stars Ethan Hawke, F. Murray Abraham, May Calamawy, Lucy Thackeray, and the late Gaspard Ulliel.
Screen Rant had the opportunity to sit down with Benson and Moorhead for an exclusive interview, and the duo discuss what intrigued them about Loki season 1 and what they're excited to tackle in season 2. Moorhead reveals that watching Loki season 1 is actually what "empowered" them while making Moon Knight in the first place. They admired the "boldness" that director Kate Herron put into the series, and when they were inspired to do the same thing, "we learned on Moon Knight and realize that Marvel is all about that," so they're looking forward to doing that even more on Loki. Read the full quote below:
Oh, man. It's actually funny, because Loki came out while we were directing Moon Knight, so we actually looked to the first season of Loki and Kate's amazing work on it to see what we were allowed to do with Moon Knight. Exactly how subversive and how bold and interesting can it be? Watching that season actually empowered us, because she in some ways was blazing a trail for us.
All of that stuff is then going to fold back on itself in season 2, because all of that boldness that she put into season 1, we learned on Moon Knight and realize that Marvel is all about that. And we're just gonna then fold it right back into the cake batter of season 2.
Benson and Moorhead directed Moon Knight episodes 2 and 4, neither of which have aired yet. However, they have already teased that Moon Knight episode 4 will have consequences that ripple out across the rest of the show, as well as the MCU as a whole. Considering that this was inspired by watching Loki season 1, the series that introduced the concept of the multiverse to the broader MCU, this illustrates how massively influential the popular series has been over the entire franchise, both in television and film.
Loki and Moon Knight have wildly different tones, with the former being more adventure-focused and the latter being more psychological. However, both represent Marvel's move to tell stories that are more internally challenging and complicated. It would certainly seem that Benson and Moorhead's instant recognition of that fact spells out very good news for season 2.