Marvel‘s Moon Knight very nearly saw Chris Evans return as an elderly Captain America, according to writer Jeremy Slater.

• READ MORE: Moon Knight review: Marvel’s best series yet – if you can stomach the accent

In a recent interview with Discussing Film, Slater revealed that the Oscar Isaac-led Disney+ series was set to unleash a number of surprising cameos, with Evans being one of them.

However, it was not to be as the show instead opted to “stand on its own two feet”.

“There were definitely different times in the writing process where we talked about cameos because cameos are one of the most fun things to discuss in a writer’s room,” said Slater.

“What happens if we try to get Chris Evans back as old Captain America? You know, you sit there and play that ‘what if’ game among your writers.”

The main cameos that were discussed, however, included Eternals characters such as Kit Harington’s Dane Whitman (aka Black Knight), Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo and Lauren Ridloff’s Makkari. All three were poised to feature in a flashback depicting the fall of ancient Egyptian goddess Ammit and the death of Alexander the Great.

In the end, though, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige encouraged the writers to drop the idea.

“Kevin comes to us and says, ‘You know what, guys? I know everyone loves the cameos. Everyone gets excited about it. But I really think your story is standing on its own two feet right now,’” Slater explained. “We really let Kevin be our guiding light for a lot of these creative decisions because he has such a good gut instinct for it.”

Slater added: “It almost feels like shoehorning in an unnecessary cameo. Suddenly War Machine happens to be visiting Cairo at that time or something like that. It feels like it would have just jerked out of the story and really taken the focus away from the character journey that we were on between Marc and Steven.

“So it’s a little bit of a bummer because I like to play with all the toys in that sandbox, and I was like, give me Doctor Strange [and] Spider-Man. But at the same time, you recognise that it’s the right creative decision.”

In a recent video interview with MTV News, Evans all but ruled out the possibility of him returning as Captain America.

“Cap is so precious to me,” Evans said. “I almost don’t want to disrupt what a beautiful experience that was.”