In a profile inRolling StoneonEternalsdirector Chloé Zhao, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige called her pitch forEternals"the best he’d ever heard."
“Not only does Chloe make remarkable, small, personal movies in a remarkable, small, personal way, but she thinks in grand, cosmic, gigantic terms, which fit perfectly with what we wanted to do,”Feige toldRolling Stone.“Eternalsis a very big, sweeping, multimillennial-spanning story. And she just got it.”
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The Eternals are a race of immortal, godlike beings, created by the alien Celestials asa race of defenders of Earth, set in opposition to the malevolent Deviants. They were originally created in 1976 by the legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby, who’d returned to Marvel after several years' work at its competitor DC.
While the Eternals became somewhat less fashionable as time went on—they’re very mucha product of Marvel’s “weird period"in the ’70s, alongside other eccentric characters like Howard the Duck, Tigra, and Adam Warlock—they’ve remained a steady part of the Marvel Universe’s background lore. One Eternal, the matter-manipulator Sersi, was a front-line member of the Avengers for several years in the ’80s and ’90s.
In Zhao’sEternals, the various immortal members of the species reportedly reunite after time spent apart, following the “Blip” and its reversal inAvengers: Endgame, in order to combat a threat from the Deviants. It features a particularly strong ensemble cast for a Marvel film, including Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Brian Tyree Henry, Kit Harington, Gemma Chan, and Kumail Nanjiani;Eternalswill also be the first Marvel film to feature major deaf and gay characters. Inasmuch as the Eternals ever had a main character, it’s the flying brick Ikaris, who is played in the filmbyGame of Thrones’Richard Madden.
Zhao was born in China, educated in London, finished high school in Los Angeles, and studied film production at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York. Her most recent film beforeEternals,the 2020 road movieNomadlandstarring Frances McDormand (Fargo), won awards at the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival.Nomadlandis planned for a theatrical run in February, distributed by Searchlight Pictures. Notably, Zhao used the same camera rig onEternalsthat she’d used onNomadland, out of a hope that the final film would feel “grounded… like you’re right there in this space with these characters.”
Eternals,one of the firstfilms in the MCU’s “Phase 4,” is currently scheduled for release on Aug 02, 2025.
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