Moon Knight: The biggest takeaways from the trailer

The trailer for Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight is finally here. With a busy 2021 officially in the rearview mirror for Marvel Studios, the first of its 2022 projects, Moon Knight, had its marketing campaign kick off on Jan. 17. Along with the first piece of footage dropping, we also got official confirmation of a release date, as the series will premiere on Disney+ on March 30.

Moon Knight stars Oscar Isaac as Marc Spector/Moon Knight alongside Academy Award Nominee Ethan Hawke as Arthur Harrow. For fans who are unfamiliar with the character of Moon Knight, Marc Spector is a former U.S. Marine with various distinct personalities due to suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Upon meeting Khonshu, the Egyptian God of the Moon and Vengeance, Spector takes up the mantle of the vigilante Moon Knight.

Airing during halftime of the NFL Wild Card Playoff game between the Arizona Cardinals and Los Angeles Rams on ABC’s Monday Night Football, the trailer left us with a couple of notable takeaways. Now, before we dive into it, be sure to check out the trailer below if you haven’t yet watched it!

Moon Knight may be Marvel’s grittiest show yet

While the MCU sometimes changes up the origin of its characters for the screen instead of adapting directly from the source material, it appears Marvel will be adapting most of the elements of Moon Knight’s character based on its official description of the series. Moon Knight has always been a character who has had a been on the darker end of stories. His character’s time as a mercenary and background in killing will no doubt leave audiences interested to see how this will all play out on screen.

Despite only getting roughly 2 minutes of footage, the action sequences seem hardcore, the tone seems dark, and the fight sequences seem violent. For those who are looking for a change of pace in the MCU’s relatively lighthearted installments — this seems like it can be the show for you. I think most fans are pulling for the creators to not hold back and let this series get brutal. I’m curious to see just how dark it will get, especially when being limited by the family-friendly platform that is Disney+. It will be interesting to see Marvel Studios push the limits on this one.

Moon Knight seems to be the most stand-alone MCU project to date

With virtually no references to the larger-scale MCU in the trailer, this series seems to be laying the groundwork for a stand-alone, character-driven story. Personally, I think this can be to the show’s benefit. Since Moon Knight is a lesser-known character, it’s best that audiences get to focus in and allow the series to provide a natural introduction to this character before immediately throwing around MCU references left and right.

Even so, it was shocking to see not one reference to the broader universe. For example, of all the Marvel projects to date, I would argue that Eternals feels the most separate from the MCU — and even in that trailer, we received mention of The Blip, Thanos, and the Avengers. Marvel likes to throw in mentions of the more well-known MCU lore in its trailers for appeal to the casual viewer, so the absence of these elements in the Moon Knight trailer stood out to me.

Now, Kevin Feige and co. always manage to find a way to integrate their characters into the larger scale events, so only time will tell how Moon Knight himself will be mixed into the grand scheme of things. However, based on the trailer it appears this series will be a relatively grounded narrative in comparison to the rest of the MCU releases that we have gotten so far, and I’m all for it. I think it is safe to say that we won’t be seeing Thor or Captain Marvel flying around in this one.

This won’t be the only poster we get either. Since this is only a teaser poster, you can bet we will see a fully updated poster come closer to the series’ release date.

How excited are you for Moon Knight compared to the other Marvel Disney+ shows? Let us know in the comments below!

Moon Knight is available to stream on Disney+ starting March 30.