‘Moon Knight’: Head Writer Jeremy Slater Says Series Almost Included Echo As Love Interest & Villain Raul Bushman

Marvel Studios is fleshing out multiple new characters thanks to their shows on Disney+, and with “Moon Knight” coming to an end this week, there are some interesting tidbits about two Marvel characters that were originally planned to show up that ultimately didn’t make the cut.

Head writer and executive producer Jeremey Slater revealed to the House of R podcast (Listen below) that the Marvel Studios series nearly featured “Hawkeye” character Maya Lopez/Echo as a love interest before they ultimately settled on the new character Layla El-Faouly, a surrogate for Marlene Alraune.

“At the time, Echo was going to be our love interest, solely based on the fact that they knew Marvel liked the character of Echo and was trying to find a show to put her in. She didn’t work at all for the story we were telling,” Slater explained on the podcast. [Marvel] were like, ‘You know what, we’ve got this ‘Hawkeye’ show and we feel like she would fit in a lot better there’ and we were like, ‘Oh, thank God.’”

READ MORE: Marvel’s ‘Echo’ Disney+ Series Adds ‘Reservation Dogs’ Actress Devery Jacobs

That wasn’t the only character that was left out during development as Slater says that Spector’s big-bad mercenary antagonist Raul Bushman didn’t end up being used, despite being referred to in one of the episodes.

“There were a lot of specifics in the pitch that didn’t wind up working in the show. Bushman was initially going to be the main villain. I thought he was going to be possessed by an Egyptian god by the end of it, and you’d have a big sort of avatar battle.”

Of course, actress Alaqua Cox took on the Echo role in “Hawkeye” and now is leading her own solo series on Disney+ that is currently in production. We’ll likely eventually see that character meet up with Spector at some point.

Marvel hasn’t indicated whether we’ll see Moon Knight in a follow-up project anytime soon but star Oscar Issac has been teasing his interest in joining the horror-centric superhero team The Midnight Sons. So, it’s unknown if Bushman will be will used in the future but given his similarities to Michael B. Jordan‘s Killmonger from “Black Panther,” they might decide to just avoid him entirely.

The finale to “Moon Knight” is currently streaming on Disney+.