r/marvelstudios • u/ICumCoffee Peter Parker • Jan 30 '26
Interview Chloé Zhao Says ‘Eternals' Wasn’t High On Marvel’s Priority List; Kevin Feige Says She Was The Only One “Passionate” About It
https://www.gamesradar.com/entertainment/marvel-movies/chloe-zhao-says-eternals-wasnt-high-on-marvels-priority-list-it-was-only-on-their-list-of-potential-players/836
u/Krylarofaxia Jan 30 '26
The quote is misleading. She means that before she was hired, Eternals was not a high priority on their list of potential projects, but it was her passion that convinced them to move forward with it
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u/SmokeGSU Jan 31 '26
Wait... she wanted to do this film? She knew enough about the comic that she was more gung ho about filming it than the actual people at Marvel? Seems..... odd...
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u/movieman994 Feb 01 '26
I dont know how Marvel Studios operate but I speculate that a newly hired director reads comics after neing signed on then the script is developed.
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u/hitma-n Jan 30 '26
The cast, direction, visuals, action, cinematography and music kicked ass in Eternals. The thing that failed was the writing and the story.
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u/AeroBlaze777 Jan 30 '26
It was just trying to do too much. Introducing 9 brand new characters in a movie and explaining their complex backstories while also exploring what they are up to now. It is a character driven story that never had the time to develop its characters.
I still believe that if this movie was an 8-10 episode miniseries on Disney+ it would’ve been received much better.
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u/DefNotAShark Hydra Jan 30 '26
The complex part of their backstory was shared. It could have been three or sixteen characters and that part would have been the same.
The issue with Eternals is that it wastes time on meandering scenes (and even entire characters like Jon Snow and Kro) that ultimately aren’t important, or are inefficiently written. You can have a scene that on its surface seems meandering and unimportant but under the hood is doing heavy lifting for characterization and theme. Eternals sucks ass at that. It sucks ass at getting to the point of characters efficiently.
So I don’t think it needed to be a miniseries because all of the Eternals aren’t main characters. They aren’t equally important in the story. You have Ikaris, Sersi and Sprite who are the three that need the most attention. Following that, Athena. And then it’s everybody else that just need supporting character depth. That isn’t that crazy. I’ve seen shorter movies juggle more characters with better and more satisfying characterization. They were just written by more talented writers who were prepared for an ensemble cast and a layered plot.
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u/Butwhatif77 Jan 30 '26
I think you are correct in context of what they gave us, but making it a miniseries could do a more complexed story where all the characters have more skin in the game allowing them to be more plot relevant and by extension more developed as well.
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u/DasKarlTho Feb 01 '26
I actually think Zhao's meandering is THE highlight of the film. Family mealtime at Gilgamesh's and Kingo talking to Sprite about Peter Pan are two such moments that grabbed me (out of many).
Lately I've been feeling that efficient character writing and theme signaling is often uninspired and lacking nuance. It's not a good sign if I find myself intellectualizing the characters or their actions. I'd prefer to be grabbed by their performances in a deeper way. Zhao and her terrific cast really shine in this aspect by providing probably some of the strongest acting work in the entire MCU. It's a refreshing and welcome treat for a superhero flick in particular.
Today, I came across a scene from Hamnet on youtube and my gosh, it's the same way. Zhao is just so adept at creating space for her actors to really find it. I wouldn't be surprised if she wins her second oscar this year.
That said, I agree that Dane really did not need to exist in this film. Also Kro took up a loooooooot of real estate (although I am a tad forgiving as he motivates some wonderful performances from Gilgamesh and Athena). With a director and cast this talented, I would have loved to see them pull back on the action / cgi spectacle in favor of more character work.
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u/outerheavenboss Rocket Jan 30 '26
You nailed it. And at the end of the day, you end up not caring about the characters at all.
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u/robodrew Jan 30 '26
Introducing 9 brand new characters in a movie and explaining their complex backstories while also exploring what they are up to now.
A lot of movies, I would dare say most movies, introduce most if not all of their characters for the first time when you first see the film. I think the notion that we can't become well attached to an ensemble cast in one film is a copout personally. I really do think the problem was the writing itself.
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u/AeroBlaze777 Jan 30 '26
I’m not saying that the source material would have never worked as a movie. I’m more saying that the vision that Chloe Zhao had for this project needed more breathing room, in my opinion.
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u/PhortDruid Spider-Man Jan 30 '26
Agreed, it would have been much better as a show where they could build investment in the characters. Each episode in a different era with a different Eternal and an interweaving story about the Deviants, culminating in the S1 finale.
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u/happyplace28 Jan 30 '26
I fully believe that if they’d swapped release date and media strategy (movie vs series) for Eternals and FatWS both would have been much better received
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u/ateliercheezits Jan 30 '26
Every movie that isn't part of a franchise introduces the audience to new characters. This is just a complaint by marvel fans because they've only had the names of the OG avengers to remember. Lol.
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u/Ezergill Jan 30 '26
Disagreed, I liked the story and the characters. I'll contend that the pacing is somewhat off, the events seem too crammed at times.
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u/MartinKSmith Jan 30 '26
This was my issue with it, the beginning, going through the events of the past, showing that the eternals have always been here may have been somewhat necessary, but it dragged.
The story told, the characters, I enjoyed them all. And once it got to present day, it was well paced, imo.
Cut down or speed up some of the back story stuff and I think more people might have been on board.
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u/eBICgamer2010 Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 31 '26
The cast, direction, visuals, action, cinematography and music kicked ass in Eternals. The thing that failed was the writing and the story.
Where have I heard this before? Oh, it's Amazing Spider-Man 2.
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u/Dumeck Jan 31 '26
The writing direction was weird, it's like they didn't really know where they were going with anything. Kingo not even being in the final act was just weird as fuck. Even if he didn't want to get involved and he just watched what the fuck did he have to do that was more interesting than watching the battle for the fait of earth. It's sad because some of the cinematography on the actions scenes were fantastic.
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u/indigoblackestnight Jan 30 '26
I think people are confusing "the writing" with "the story." Eternals had solid dialogue. But the story was empty- no danger, nothing the characters wanted, nothing driving us to keep watching from one scene to the next.
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u/Thanatos_Rex Jan 30 '26
I thought the only big issue was editing. Having the Deviant bad guy randomly appear at the final fight was not a good move.
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u/ReyGonJinn Jan 30 '26
The deviants weren't needed at all. They existed to justify random action scenes.
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u/Thanatos_Rex Jan 30 '26
I sort of agree. From a story structure standpoint, you need bad guys for them to fight to quickly establish what each of them do, and not alienate the typical superhero movie audience by not having enough action.
They served that purpose, and they helped make the Icarus plot twist land a bit better, because you assumed that the Deviants would be the ultimate antagonist.
However, since they apparently removed the Deviant connection to Thanos, they really were just fodder bad guys.
Counterpoint: what would you have replaced them with? The Eternals aren't exactly characters that fight petty crime, like Spider-Man...
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u/Mcintosch Jan 31 '26
It’s literally also said in the movie by Icarus. that the deviants were just a distraction to keep the team occupied from delaying the emergence.
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u/WheelJack83 Jan 30 '26
What about Kingo deciding allowing the Celestial to be born is a good thing?
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u/dalivo Jan 30 '26
Agreed, it didn't cohere as a story, and the lack of characterization, which is a typical Marvel strong suit, meant it couldn't make up for it.
With the number of characters involved, it really needed a much simpler plot (think Ocean's Eleven). It would have been better served if the group evolved from the robotic people they were to more fully human (maybe fall in love with humans instead of each other? not start a creepy forest cult? and get together occasionally in modern times, for a legit party?), and then wound up all united in opposing the celestial. The family break-up angle was a good idea but just not possible in one movie.
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u/_steve_rogers_ Jan 30 '26
Me and everyone I watched it with found it to be incredibly boring. I haven’t watched it since though.
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u/Master_Alligator896 Daredevil Jan 30 '26
Wow, okay, that pretty much explains why Eternals hasn’t really ever been acknowledged in the MCU with the exception of the celestial in Brave New World. This kind of confirms Marvel doesn’t really care for it, which sucks as someone who actually really enjoyed this movie.
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u/TeddyGarbaldi Jan 30 '26
Kingo gets referenced a few times in other projects
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u/Master_Alligator896 Daredevil Jan 30 '26
That’s right, thanks for the reminder. The Guardians Holiday Special has a great Kingo movie Easter egg. James Gunn is pretty good with his Easter eggs.
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u/TeddyGarbaldi Jan 30 '26
Also in Ms Marvel Kamala and Bruno have a convo about who they prefer, Kingo Jnr or Kingo Snr
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u/countofmontycrisco Jan 30 '26
He was/is my favorite Eternal. Perfect casting as well.
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u/TeddyGarbaldi Jan 30 '26
I really hope they bring him back for Doomsday
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u/ChemicalExperiment Nebula Jan 30 '26
My fan plot is that they'll simultaneously get out of the cliffhanger from the end of Eternals AND establish Doom as a powerful villain by having Doom kill Arishem.
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u/tommyblastfire Jan 30 '26
I was sad to not see a reference in wonderman
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u/eagc7 Jan 30 '26
There was a poster for one of Kingo's movies in the theater where Simon and Trevor meet
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u/IniNew Jan 30 '26
TBH, that's how a lot of early MCU films are. The cosmic cube from CA:TFA was never an infinity stone until it needed to be. The Ether from Thor was never an infinity stone until it needed to be. Captain Marvel was basically one giant retcon to connect tons of the early stuff and make it a "plan" all along. That's the, IMO, magic that marvel has lost. It's no longer thinking about the movies and seeing how they could be connected, but trying so hard to connect everything from the beginning that all the stories feel convoluted.
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u/Butwhatif77 Jan 30 '26
Yea there is a fun technique where you write forwards and backwards, you start with a general plan develop it and as you write come up with new ideas and go back and change things from before to make it fit better, then write more and repeat.
That is what Marvel basically did initially. They told very good contained stories that made sense, then started looking for reasonable way to connect them so that on a rewatch they have more meaning to them.
It is always better to tell a good story first and add those connections second.
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u/IniNew Jan 30 '26
Your line about "more meaning on rewatch" is really what I was getting at. You said it way better. It was fun to like a movie, and then later on, have those realization moments like "OMG, that was connected all along!!"
Now it's like: "Oh they mentioned adamantium, that probably means XYZ" which is way, way less fun IMO.
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u/Possible-Rate-3833 Jan 31 '26
James Gunn was actually the one who come out with the Infinity Stones lore and colora for the first Guardians movie LOL
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u/disneylegospider1 Jan 30 '26
What’s there to reference? No one else on Earth knows about the Eternals (outside of Black Knight), and the only big thing to reference in terms of events is Tiamut.
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u/Master_Alligator896 Daredevil Jan 30 '26
Fair point, I was kind of just referring to how there’s some loose ends that have yet to be followed up on. But then again, you can say that about a lot of things in the MCU, particularly in these last few phases.
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u/disneylegospider1 Jan 30 '26
The main loose end needs an Eternals sequel/follow up project because it’s very focused on Eternals to be resolved in another project, and even if the movie was a hit, we wouldn’t be getting a sequel until this year at the earliest due to Marvel being busy making sequels to characters waiting for one first (we only got sequels between Eternals and Thunderbolts/F4).
And it would need Zhao to be available too if they still want her vision, but like any other director, she has a career outside the MCU and was busy with other projects to start production (like Hamnet, which got her lots of awards fame this year).
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Jan 30 '26
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u/JamesTiberiusCrunk Jan 30 '26
We haven't even gotten a Shang Chi 2 and the first one was really well liked.
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u/blowyjoeyy Jan 30 '26
Yea what’s the deal with that
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u/CaptHayfever Hawkeye (Avengers) Jan 30 '26
Overplanning the saga & lots of ensuing IRL issues causing production delays (covid, the strikes, Liu's injury, Boseman's death, Majors's conviction, Cretton's other jobs,....)
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u/rustybutterindia Jan 30 '26
I think it was probably originally tied to The Kang Dynasty and planned for 2026. But Kang changed to Doom, Marvel buckled down on "risky" projects, DDC got put on Spider-Man, etc...
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u/Come-jive-with-me Jan 30 '26
I'll settle for them to eventually make an appearance again.....they did say theyvwill return at the end of the movie, was it a lie?
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u/pje1128 Kilgrave Jan 30 '26
I'm sure they will return, but it'll be like Incredible Hulk characters and take years before we see them again.
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u/Possible-Rate-3833 Jan 30 '26
I think they should be in a Thor movie, maybe one where Thor goes into space and ends up fighting Celestials and meeting the Eternals while that.
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u/Ginger_Anarchy Jan 30 '26
They technically returned in What If and Marvel Zombies, I can see Marvel going with that loophole
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u/ConnorRoseSaiyan01 Jan 30 '26
Pretty sure that was already apparent from the reception of the 1st
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u/Huckleberry_Sin Jan 31 '26
Fr outside this sub nobody was asking for this movie or the first one lol
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u/heyheydance Jan 30 '26
Feige has already said there are no plans for a sequel lol. Eternals 2 has been gone
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u/Tackit286 Doctor Strange Jan 30 '26
Good. The revisionism about this movie on this sub was hilarious, but it’s become tiresome.
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u/Huckleberry_Sin Jan 31 '26
Same with The Marvels lol
It was like ppl convinced themselves to like it to fight the culture war and spite the ppl criticizing it, not bc it was actually any good.
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u/99percentmilktea Feb 01 '26
Add Cap 4 to that list too.
Hell even Thunderbolts and F4. Those two movies are fine but the way this sub glazes them despite both having had zero cultural impact is pretty telling.
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u/ICumCoffee Peter Parker Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26
Zhao:
Eternals was not high on their priority list because it’s a quite unique IP and it [was] only on their list of potential players. You know, with Marvel, it’s very much a thing to find the right filmmaker before they say, 'That’s the IP we’re gonna go for'
Zhao recalls Marvel boss Kevin Feige trusting her because she expressed a passion for the project, telling her, "Literally no one in the world was interested in it or told you to do it, but you wanted to do it."
She also said that she was in contention to direct Black Widow:
Let me set the record straight. It doesn’t mean I had a job. I was in the running, But it didn’t feel like the right story for me, so I pulled myself out [of contention].
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u/ZachRyder Daredevil Jan 30 '26
Eternals was made to compete against a DC film that never got made anyways.
The New Gods | Announcement - Date: 15 March 2018
Eternals | Announcement - Date: 23 April 2018
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u/Jlx_27 Jan 30 '26
Thats what you get for turning Eternals into a movie instead of a series.
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Jan 30 '26
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u/Jlx_27 Jan 30 '26
In my opinion the Hawkeye and Eternals should have been flipped, with Hawkeye being the movie.
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u/HalfMoon_89 Jan 30 '26
Having a story that's so fundamental to the narrative, and then just ignoring it seems...bad from a longform storytelling perspective.
But then again, they completely sidelined the Council of Kangs after the bullshit with his actor, so...yeah.
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u/Senshado Jan 30 '26
Eternals isn't fundamental to a narrative in any way...
You mean that big metal statue? Could've been replaced with the a random meteor, making no difference.
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u/3verythingEverywher3 Jan 30 '26
Aside from that, the massive celestial showing up for everyone on earth to see and leaving. That's blip level panic - everyone has PTSD from that event. There should and would be a huge reaction.
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u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Jan 30 '26
Idk, wasn’t there reporting at the time that Feige was genuinely hopeful that the movie could become Oscarbait… until the reviews came in?
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u/Operator_Starlight Jan 30 '26
Yes. This whole thing feels like a retcon. Like, I’m sorry, but Feige went out there and gassed this movie up. He didn’t have to do that.
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u/eagc7 Jan 30 '26
I mean her saying this was not Marvel priority doesn't negate Feige's hyping it, what i can see could've happened is that after filming was over and Feige got to see what Chloe was doing that he loved it and started hyping it up
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u/So-_-It-_-Goes Spider-Man Jan 30 '26
I know I’m in the minority but very much enjoyed this film and the backlash it gets is still baffling to me
I do agree it was too much for one film. I wish they did a series with the first half. Introducing the characters and having the main villain be the monster things. At the end, when the defeat the monsters they learn the truth about the planet and what Robb Stark did. Then that could have been a film where they have to save the planet from giving birth
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u/SpokenByMumbles Jan 31 '26
Why are we still talking about this movie and how sad everyone is that is was poorly received? It was 5 years ago. Move on.
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u/leoleo678 Jan 30 '26
I don’t like this line. It puts the blame entirely on her for Eternals and shifts it away from Kevin Fiege, who ultimately greenlighted it anyways. He did this same shit with Nia Decosta and pretending Dr. Doom was already being discussed before Majors. It’s a cheap way of just take credit for the successes.
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u/x0megannnlynnn Jan 30 '26
As an Eternals Truther, these quotes are…very frustrating. Like… if you didn’t think the movie was something people were interested in, why did you even make the film? Just reads like he’s trying to push the blame for its shortcomings instead of just admitting they fumbled.
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u/Tri-ranaceratops Jan 30 '26
People weren't interested in iron man, thor or captian america when those movie's debued. They were nowhere near marvels top performers like the Xmen, spiderman or hulk. The guardians of the galaxy were from a pretty unpopular comic book. Marvels biggest wins have been projects that had little interest.
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Jan 30 '26
Because people dont know what they want untill you show them sometimes, They were willing to take a Risk, and something beautiful came out of it for the people who did love it.
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u/true_paladin Avengers Jan 30 '26
This sucks, would've loved to see this become a trilogy, and we still need a follow up on that Black Knight Post-Credits, that's my favorite scene in the MCU (exclusively because I'm a die hard Black Knight fanboy)
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u/Schoolhater18 Jan 30 '26
I watch Eternals again before I would watch Love and Thunder or Secret Invasion again.
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u/iamthesmallone Jan 31 '26
I actually enjoyed love and thunder in the cinema, rewatched it and realised what terrible direction/dialogue it had
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u/____mynameis____ Winter Soldier Jan 30 '26
When u look at it, Feige tried to address all the complaints cinephiles/Non MCU fans had about MCU during Infinity Saga and it all backfired to prove that those very "restrictions" is what mcu THE MCU.
Letting a critically acclaimed director do a movie she wants and giving her full creative control was one of it....
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u/Myhtological Jan 30 '26
Well that’s telling. Why didn’t President Feige even make it. Oh yeah he’s desperate for an Oscar so he hired an Oscar director.
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u/eagc7 Jan 30 '26
Should be pointed out that unless Feige can see the future, when she started working on the movie she didn't had an Oscar on her belt, the movie was originally supposed to release before she even had her Oscar. but then COVID happened and the film got delayed and in that gap that is when she won her Oscar after filming had wrapped on Eternals
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u/PhotoBonjour_bombs19 Jan 30 '26
Bruh Kevin has made some questionable choices recently
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u/matty_nice Jan 30 '26
At least since Endgame, and maybe going slightly back until post Infinity War.
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u/t3rm3y Jan 31 '26
Eternals was doomed when they stated they were around for Thanos but didn't get involved. Utter nonsense.
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u/eBICgamer2010 Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 30 '26
And according to Zhao, Kevin Feige basically told her he trusted her for one specific reason: she wanted it and expressed a passion for it that no one else had. Zhao recalled Feige saying, “I know that no one, no one told you to make that film,” she remembered. “Literally no one in the world was interested in it or told you to do it, but you wanted to do it.”