20 facts you might not know about 'Eternals'

Once Marvel announced plans for an Eternals film, they started meeting with screenwriters. They chose cousins Ryan and Kaz Firpo to handle writing the initial script for the movie. The Firpos had previously had a script, “Ruin,” which topped the famed “Black List” of unproduced screenwriters, but Kaz’s best success was directing a documentary about Syrian refugees.

Zhao had previously been in the running to direct Black Widow, and she is the one who went to Marvel looking for a gig. Despite her perception as an arthouse director, Zhao was a fan of the MCU and wanted to direct a film for them. She didn’t get the Black Widow gig, but she was for Eternals.

While Zhao’s second time was a charm, she was not the only director considered for Eternals. Also in the running were Travis Knight and Nicole Kassell.

The Russo Brothers made citing lofty influences for MCU films into an art form, but Zhao may have surpassed them with her cited inspirations for Eternals. Zhao was inspired by her love of manga but also cited the TV show Ancient Aliens, the book Sapiens, the video game series Final Fantasy, and the films of Terrence Malick as influences on her movie.

The first name announced for Eternals was Angelina Jolie. At the time, it was expected she would be playing Sersi, who was purportedly the lead character in the film. Jolie is in the movie but as Thena, not Sersi.

Ultimately, Gemma Chan was cast in the ostensible lead role of Sersi, though Eternals is quite the ensemble piece. This was interesting, as Chan had just been in Captain Marvel as Minn-Erva. However, Minn-Erva dies in that film, and reportedly, Kevin Feige told Chan they wanted to find a better role for her. They were having trouble casting Sersi, so Chan auditioned late and ended up winning the role. Minn-Erva who?

At one point, it was reported that Jolie, Richard Madden, and Millie Bobby Brown had been cast in Eternals. Two out of three isn’t bad. Jolie and Madden were cast in the film, but Brown denied she had been cast and is not in the film. One assumes that the role she was rumored to be cast was Sprite, which went to Lia McHugh.

Spoiler: It turns out Ikaris is kind of the villain of the movie despite being one of the Eternals. Ikaris’ powers may remind you of Superman. Zhao said she was inspired by Superman in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel in terms of how she wanted to portray Ikaris. The director said Man of Steel had “left a strong impression” on her.

Somebody at Marvel is a Seinfeld fan, or maybe multiple people. MCU movies are shot under fake working titles to avoid too much attention, and they often seem to be Seinfeld references. Eternals is no different. The film was shot under “Sack Lunch,” the dumb comedy movie in Seinfeld that Elaine wants to see.

Zhao was to shoot Eternals back-to-back with Nomadland, a film being shot on an oh-so-slightly smaller scope. The director wanted to shoot on location as much as possible. That differed from many Marvel movies, primarily shot on giant green-screen sets in Atlanta. Zhao got what she wanted, shooting at the actual Oxford University Museum of Natural History and filming much of the film in the Canary Islands.

Say this for Marvel’s Atlanta filming headquarters: Explosive devices aren’t exactly popping up there. One day when shooting on Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands, Jolie, Madden, and the crew had to be evacuated when an explosive device was found at their shooting location. No, it wasn’t anything new. The thought is that it was a vestige of a long-ago Nazi base that had been on the island in the 1940s.

After principal photography was over, it was revealed that Zhao had worked as a writer on the script. In a weird bit of crediting, Zhao has screenplay credit by herself and as part of a writing team with Patrick Burleigh. The Firpos also have screenplay credit and get the "story by" credit.

In the mid-credits scene, Styles makes his MCU debut as Eros, the brother of Thanos in the comics. That casting came from Zhao herself. She says that she had kept Styles in mind as an actor since seeing him in Dunkirk, and she thought he would make a good Eros.

According to Zhao, the original ending to Eternals was much darker. All the surviving Eternals would have had their minds erased, and they would have gotten back on the ship and headed to a new planet. Zhao compared it to an episode of The Twilight Zone. "I remember when it goes to black, everyone was like, ‘I don’t know what to do,'" Zhao told Empire (h/t The Wrap). "And also, it’s the MCU, and you want to be excited for what’s next.”

The year 2021 was huge for Zhao. Her 2020 film Nomadland won Best Picture at the Oscars, and Zhao won Best Director. That means Eternals was directed by a Best Director winner, though she had shot Eternals before her victory. However, being an awards darling has its downside. Because of the Nomadland awards campaign, Zhao was unable to edit Eternals herself, a departure from how she typically made her films.

Eternals had it tough enough as is domestically because it was released in 2021 when the COVID-19 pandemic was still hindering film releases. During the peak of the pandemic, the Chinese box office was key to a lot of films. Unfortunately, China had no interest in Eternals. Zhao had made comments about China and the Chinese government in 2013 that led to the country banning the film from a theatrical release. Additionally, several Middle Eastern countries banned Eternals due to an LGBTQ couple depicted in the film.

The film opened to $162 million globally, the second-highest-grossing opening weekend worldwide since the start of the pandemic. Eternals slowed down a bit after that, but it made $164.9 million domestically and $402.1 million worldwide. The movie finished as the sixth-highest-grossing movie domestically in 2021. The budget was $200 million before factoring in marketing, so it likely didn’t make a huge profit. However, for a pandemic release, Disney was probably cool with it.

Why did Eternals fall at the box office after a big first weekend? Well, reviews and word of mouth may have played a part. Eternals has a 47 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, by far the worst of any MCU film. If you aren’t a Rotten Tomatoes fan, its 52 on Metacritic is also the lowest of any MCU film. Wisdom of the crowds? The movie’s CinemaScore is a B. That may not seem bad, but CinemaScore and Homer Simpson’s early career as a food critic (“Nine thumbs up? What the hell is that?”) have a lot in common. The “B” score is also the lowest of any MCU movie; only four have done worse than an A-.

Zhao said she would be down to direct a sequel to Eternals . Chan has said she would play Sersi again, and, of course, Feige has said that you can expect to see Styles return as Eros in the future of the MCU. Patton Oswalt, who voices Pip the Troll, has said that there will be a sequel with Zhao returning to direct, but he’s the only one to say it thus far. Meanwhile, the Firpos have expressed interest in a prequel series for Disney+.

At the end of Eternals, we see Kit Harington’s character open a case and pull out a blade, which is apparently the Ebony Blade. Then, a voice off-screen speaks to him. There is no context given, the character is unnamed, and the voice is uncredited. Eventually, it was revealed that the voice was provided by Mahershala Ali, who will be playing Blade in a future MCU film.