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Moon Knight's Success Is Great for Rick Riordan's Kane Chronicles Series
The popularity of the MCU's Moon Knight show could help to increase interest in Rick Riordan's The Kane Chronicles movies in the works at Netflix.

Moon Knight's Success Is Great for Rick Riordan's Kane Chronicles Series

The success of Moon Knight is great news for Rick Riordan’s The Kane Chronicles. Riordan, the creator of the Percy Jackson universe, is collaborating with Netflix to turn another of his book series into a film trilogy. Similar to Moon Knight, The Kane Chronicles relies heavily on Ancient Egyptian gods, characters, and themes to tell a modern mythological story.

Moon Knight follows Steven Grant/Marc Spector, a man with Dissociative Identity Disorder who is the current avatar of the Egyptian god of the moon, Khonshu. The characters must stop the rise of the prejudiced god Ammit while learning why Khonshu chose Marc as Moon Knight. The show introduces a whole new pantheon of gods to the MCU, including Osiris, Isis, and Taweret. These gods take a backseat to the clash between Khonshu and Ammit but help to familiarize the show’s audience to a new mythos and a new facet of the MCU. 

The Kane Chronicles will be adapted from Riordan’s novel trilogy, with each movie covering the events of each book. The books follow siblings Carter and Sadie Kane as they discover that Egyptian gods are alive and kicking in the modern world. As descendants of shamans and pharaohs, the pair learn to wield Ancient Egyptian magic and godly abilities from their ancestors. The premise is extremely similar to Riordan’s more popular Percy Jackson series, which involves Greek gods. Little is known about the Kane Chronicles adaptation, but the popularity of Marvel’s Moon Knight couldn’t have come at a better time for Netflix’s adaptation, as it created a mainstream demand for Egyptology content. 

By introducing the Egyptian pantheon to a mainstream audience in the MCU, Moon Knight has created a familiarity with content loosely based on modern Egyptian gods and broken the ice on a new subgenre of fiction for movies and TV shows. There will surely be an increased demand for entertainment based on Ancient Egypt in modern times, and the development of a Kane Chronicles film trilogy can capitalize on it. This popularity can be seen by the Moon Knight premiere’s high viewership. Riordan’s YA series similarly introduces gods from Egypt interfering with mortal affairs in present-day America, and the framework for this pantheon of gods has now been laid by Moon Knight

While The Kane Chronicles has been in development for at least six months before Riordan’s other current adaptation, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, there have been no updates on the former since his blog post in March of 2021. This seems to imply that The Kane Chronicles has taken a backseat to Percy Jackson, which could also be to the Egyptian series’ advantage. As the more popular of Riordan’s franchises, Percy Jackson having a successful adaptation could generate more interest in the Kane Chronicles movies, since new fans of the author will develop an interest in his other work. Any fears that The Kane Chronicles could be dropped by Netflix after so long can be lessened by the streaming platform’s plans to produce The Kane Chronicles as a trilogy, and not a stand-alone film. This suggests confidence in the performance of the first feature and means that Netflix are unlikely to drop the franchise.

It looks like Netflix has a leg-up on the competition by already having an Egyptian-themed film in development with The Kane Chronicles. Thanks to the popularity of Moon Knight, the next piece of entertainment to feature pyramids and obscure gods mingling with the modern world may find unexpected success. As for when the Kane Chronicles movies will arrive, hopefully, Rick Riordan will soon give another update about the adaptation on his blog.