Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the most adventurous since the whole project began. With the core Avengers team on the side-lines or even retired for the moment, Marvel Studios is all-in on exploring its more unusual stories and characters, from the time-bending TVA to the martial arts showcase of Shang-Chi. But of all the upcoming Phase 4 projects, none feel quite as out there as Eternals.
Knowing very little about what this movie could be, I visited Pinewood Studios, London back in January 2020, just as Marvel was wrapping up the final day of its colossal 82-day Eternals shoot. There I was able to see concept art, costumes, sets, and props from the upcoming film, and finally get a feel for what appears to be the MCU’s most wildly different movie yet. Here’s seven of the most fascinating things I learned while on the set of Marvel’s Eternals.
1 – A story that spans 7,000 years
Eternals will be the largest scale story Marvel Studios has ever told, at least in regards to duration of time. It spans 7,000 years of humanity, something made possible by the eternal life of its alien protagonists. Starting with the earliest days of recorded history, Eternals will explore several different civilizations, with the story bouncing back and forth between the past and present day.
“It's structured in style like The Godfather Part Two; there's a past storyline and the present storyline,” reveals Nate Moore, Producer at Marvel Studios. He estimates that 60% of the film is set in the modern day, with the remaining 40% exploring a multitude of eras.
As Moore describes Eternals’ many eras he namechecks the Gupta Empire in 200 AD, the fall of the Aztec Empire, and the Amazon circa 1500 AD, the latter of which is also revisited in the present day. There’s also Mesopotamia and its famous city of Babylon, a chunk of which was built on a Pinewood soundstage. There, I watched a sequence being filmed in which Sprite (played by Lia McHugh), an Eternal perpetually trapped in the form of a 12-year-old girl, tells stories to an entranced Babylonian crowd.
During its present-day segments London appears to be a key location, as it’s where two Eternals have made their home living among humans; Sprite and Sersi (Gemma Chan). Meanwhile, Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo has traded in a life of stoic heroism for the world of Bollywood, and the story takes us to the set of one of his movies (presumably in Mumbai, the home of Indian cinema).
2 – Who are the Eternals?
Guiding us through those 7,000 years are the Eternals themselves. Numbering ten, this is the largest core team that the MCU has ever assembled. They are also arguably more important to humanity than the Avengers ever were: the Eternals have been sent to Earth by the Celestial space gods in order to protect the planet from the Deviants, a group of ever-evolving aliens hell-bent on destruction.
This new MCU team is made up of names that many hardcore Marvel comics fans will find familiar, although a few of the characters have been gender-switched from their book counterparts. Leading the team is Salma Hayek’s Ajak, and she’s followed by Sersi (Gemma Chan), Ikaris (Richard Madden), Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), Sprite (Lia McHugh), Gilgamesh (Don Lee), Druig (Barry Keoghan), and Thena (Angelina Jolie).
The roster is notably diverse, with actors of varying heritage, genders, and ages. It also features two firsts for the MCU: Phastos is Marvel’s first gay superhero. Makkari is deaf, and appropriately played by deaf actor Lauren Ridloff.
“I think diversity is important,” says Moore. “I think, as filmmakers, we want our audience reflected on the screen. I think the great thing about Eternals is it's just part of the narrative without having to talk about it. They were selected for this mission partially because they could integrate into an Earth that does have a sprawling identity.”
The Eternals also don’t look quite as chiselled and refined as Marvel’s many other heroes. “[Director Chloé Zhao’s] brief was that everybody had to be natural,” explains Frances Hannon, Hair and Makeup Designer on Eternals. “She didn’t want a superhero look. She wants them to be accessible to every age and everybody.”
The team arrives on Earth in a spaceship named the Domo, which some may recognise as having borrowed its name from another Eternals comic character. The ship’s bridge contains a huge avatar of Arishem the Judge, the omnipotent Celestial with which the Eternals communicate. It’s he who commands the team’s mission to rid earth of the Deviants.
3 – What is a Deviant?
Like the Eternals, the Deviants in the MCU are slightly different to their comic counterparts. Rather than being a mutant strain of the Eternals, the Deviants are a parasitic alien species that hunt out and assimilate a world’s apex predators.
“The Deviants in the comics are called the changing people, and no two look the same,” says Moore. “So in our film, no two Deviants will look the same. When they kill off a predator in the film, they take the shape of that predator. So there's a bat-like Deviant, there's a wolf-like Deviant, there's even Deviants that look like all sorts of creatures from myth and legend and history.”
Moore shows off some concept art of the creatures, each of which looks like those animals he namechecks; bats, wolves, and crocodiles. All are rendered in a pearlescent flesh that shimmers like oil. One of them, though, looks like earth’s greatest apex predator: humanity. Its name is Kro.
“He is the leader of the Deviants,” reveals Moore. “He is the most intelligent of the Deviants. He is the only one who can speak, and that evolution will be one of the mysteries the Eternals have to uncover. Why is he able to do this? Why does he look humanoid when all the other Deviants, to some degree, are monstrous?”
4 – It’s an epic romance
“We've made 25 movies now at Marvel, but this is the first movie that's really built around a romance as the central relationship,” reveals Moore. “It is an epic romance. It's never going to be The Notebook, but the goal is for it to be something that is the spine of the movie.”
That romance is between two Eternals: Gemma Chan’s Sersi and Richard Madden’s Ikaris. Luckily for Marvel, Chan and Madden are good friends off-set, and so the chemistry for their pairing was “instantaneous”.
But while that relationship may help bring them together, there’s a third person in the picture: Kit Harrington’s Dane Whitman. Fans of the comics may know of Whitman’s romance with Sersi, and so it looks as if a love triangle may develop over the course of Eternal’s unprecedented timeline. Or, as Moore puts it, Sersi has “options.”
While the romance will form the “spine” of the movie, Eternals has a scope that includes a plethora of other elements. Moore describes it as a “hard sci-fi”, and notes that director Chloé Zhao references Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus a lot.
“Even though the movie is about these immortal aliens, thematically it is about humanity and what it means to be human,” Moore says, linking Eternals to Prometheus’ philosophical questions. “And are we stewards of our Earth? Or is that somebody else's problem? Even though these characters are not human, that's what the movie wants to tackle.”
5 – The Black Knight rises
Kit Harrington’s character, Dane Whitman, isn’t just known for being Seri’s boyfriend in the comics. He’s also the Black Knight, a superhero with a lineage that goes back to the days of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Yup, it’s sort of an Assassin’s Creed deal, but with an ebony sword instead of a hidden blade.
“He won't be the Black Knight in our film,” says Moore, not exactly letting us down gently. “But Dane Whitman also has a history with Sersi which we think is really interesting and fun to play with.”
Moore says this, but during a tour of the Eternals prop room I spotted what looks suspiciously like a broken Obsidian Dagger, a key item in the Black Knight’s mythos. So while we may not see that full transformation, it looks like Eternals may be seeding a future Black Knight storyline or even movie. "You won't see the Ebony Blade in this movie," emphasises Moore. "He's not going to be a Black Knight necessarily, but that is something that we get to play with down the road."
In the comics, Dane Whitman is tortured by his lineage, but – as with so many characters in the MCU – his movie counterpart will be a little more jovial. Moore praises Kit Harrington’s charm and comic timing, noting it plays off well against Richard Madden’s “different” form of charming.
"But he can go dark," concludes Moore. “I think there's room for him to play both sides of that character." It seems almost certain that Whitman is present as more than just a romantic interest for Sersi.
6 – It’s not based on the Eternals comics run you (probably) think it is
If you know who the Eternals are, chances are you discovered them through Neil Gaiman’s critically acclaimed seven-issue run from 2006. But while Gaiman’s work is considered a must-read in the Marvel canon, the MCU is going back to where it all began for the movie version: Jack Kirby’s stories from 1976.
The decision behind this is simple. “The Gaiman run was very much about people who didn't realize they were special,” explains Moore. “And then Ikaris coming and saying ‘Hey, guess what, you guys are immortals and your memories have been erased.’ That’s pretty cool, but it’s also the plot of Harry Potter, and I Am Number Four, and The Matrix, and a lot of movies like that.
“We thought it would be more interesting to spend the time with characters who knew exactly who they were,” Moore continues. “And to track those characters through what will be 7,000 years of human history.”
Like every MCU other film, Eternals doesn’t directly adapt a comic story arc. It does, however, draw a huge amount of inspiration from its source, particularly in its visuals. Legendary Marvel writer and artist Jack Kirby put together the original look and lore for Eternals, and so all those elements have formed the foundations of what the MCU team is. Expect lots of Kirby’s signature line and circle work in the Eternals’ costumes, weapons, and superpower effects.
7 – Another director from the Sundance Lab
In January 2016 Marvel announced that it had recruited Ryan Coogler to direct Black Panther. Coogler is a graduate of the prestigious Sundance Institute, having attended its Screenwriters Lab in 2012 while working on his first feature film. Interestingly, another filmmaker attended the Lab that very same year who would also go on to be picked to helm an MUC film: Chloé Zhao.
Like Coogler, Zhao isn’t an obvious MCU pick. Her previous films – Songs My Brothers Taught Me, The Rider, and the recent Academy Award-winner Nomadland – are worlds apart from Marvel’s epic superheroic scope. But Marvel Studios saw something in her talents that seems perfect for Eternals.
“She's pushed us as a filmmaker to make Eternals feel aesthetically different than any other Marvel movie,” explains Moore. “She likes to shoot in a lot of natural locations with natural light. So this film, of any Marvel films, has shot outside exteriors more than anything else. I think it's lent it a look unlike anything we've ever done.”
From the trailers Marvel has released so far, he’s right: Eternals looks shockingly naturalistic compared to the supremely glossy visuals of all the other MCU films. The clips I was shown on set were from early work and will presumably have some post-processing applied, but the sequences shown in the latest trailer have a similar texture. The film grain, lighting, and composition of the shots feel grounded and dramatic, which helps lend it the heft of its intended tale of what humanity means in the vast universe of space and time.
We'll see just exactly what Zhao's unique touch brings to the MCU when Marvel's Eternals opens in theatres on November 5. Tickets are on sale now.
Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.