'Moon Knight' helmer Mohamed Diab slams 'Wonder Woman 1984' over Egypt depiction

Mohamed Diab, the director of Marvel's upcoming 'Moon Knight' series, has said that he feels Hollywood has a long way to go when it comes to depicting his native country Egypt.

According to Variety, Diab has attempted to rectify this as 'Moon Knight' will be incorporating elements of Ancient Egyptian mythology in telling the story of Marc Spector (Oscar Isaac), a mercenary who becomes the conduit of the Egyptian moon god Khonshu.

Recently while speaking to a magazine, the filmmaker said, "In my pitch, there was a big part about Egypt, and how inauthentically it has been portrayed throughout Hollywood's history. It's always exotic - we call it orientalism. It dehumanizes us. We are always naked, we are always sexy, we are always bad, we are always over the top."

As a recent example of Western cinema failing Egypt, Diab pointed to 'Wonder Woman 1984' and slammed it for playing into the tropes.

"You never see Cairo. You always see Jordan shot for Cairo, Morocco shot for Cairo, sometimes Spain shot for Cairo. This really angers us. I remember seeing 'Wonder Woman 1984' and there was a big sequence in Egypt and it was a disgrace for us. You had a sheik - that doesn't make any sense to us. Egypt looked like a country from the Middle Ages. It looked like the desert," Diab said.

As per Variety, the filmmaker stated that the relationship between 'Moon Knight' and Egypt is "part of the show because it's part of the comic book. It's part of how he gets his powers. It's ingrained in it."

The upcoming series has been created and written by Jeremy Slater, with Mohamed Diab, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead directing. It's executive produced by Isaac, Slater, Diab, Kevin Feige, Louis D'Esposito, Victoria Alonso and Brad Winderbaum.

( With inputs from ANI )