ETERNALS

A GREEK TRAGEDY AT MARVEL

HOW ETERNALS REACHED THE SCREEN

Kevin Feige announced the film in April 2018, the Firpos were hired to write it, and Chloé Zhao was hired to direct in September 2018. Zhao was drawn to a treatment that read like a Greek play, and the credited writers are Zhao, Patrick Burleigh and the Firpos. The cast was announced at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2019, and filming wrapped on 4 February 2020 after shooting at Pinewood Studios, in the Canary Islands, in Oxford and in London.

REAL LOCATIONS, NOT GREEN SCREEN

WHAT SETS THE FILM APART

Zhao shot most of the film on location rather than on soundstages with CG backgrounds. Salma Hayek, who plays Ajak, explained how that changed the look of the film:

“It’s shot different than all the other ones.”

Salma Hayek, February 2021

Hayek added that it was “in real locations” and that “it’s not mostly done in post.” Ramin Djawadi composed the score.

TEN ETERNALS AND A BLACK KNIGHT

WHO IS IN THE CAST

Gemma Chan plays Sersi, with Richard Madden as Ikaris, Angelina Jolie as Thena, Salma Hayek as Ajak, Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, Barry Keoghan as Druig, Don Lee as Gilgamesh, Lia McHugh as Sprite and Kit Harington as Dane Whitman. Ridloff’s casting earned the film the Ruderman Family Foundation’s Seal of Authentic Representation.

TWO DELAYS AND A CAUTIOUS OPENING

HOW THE FILM WAS RELEASED AND WHAT IT EARNED

The film was first dated for November 2020, moved to February 2021 because of the pandemic, premiered at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on 18 October 2021 and opened in the US on 5 November. It opened to $71,297,219 in the US, below various pre-release projections, and went on to earn $164,870,234 there and $402,064,899 worldwide against a budget of $236.2 million. It came to Disney+ on 12 January 2022.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman did not release the film because of its gay couple, and the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt were set to show an edited version without love scenes. The mid-credits scene introduces Eros, played by Harry Styles, and Pip the Troll, played by Patton Oswalt, and the post-credits scene features Mahershala Ali’s voice as Blade.

THE REWATCH

A 48% CRITICS SCORE AND A GLAAD AWARD

Rotten Tomatoes lists a 48% critics’ score from 416 reviews and a 77% audience score, and its consensus calls the film “an ambitious superhero epic that soars as often as it strains.” Metacritic gives it 52 from 62 critics, and audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it a B. It was the first MCU film rated rotten on Rotten Tomatoes. Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times wrote of “one of the more interesting movies Marvel will ever make.”

The film won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film in wide release, and Ramin Djawadi won a BMI Film & TV Award for the score. Feige said in July 2024 that there were “no plans for a sequel at the time.”

In the Marvel Marathon it sits in the MCU release order guide between Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Hawkeye, and in the MCU movies in order guide between Shang-Chi and Spider-Man: No Way Home. In the Marvel movies in release order guide it sits between Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home. In the MCU timeline guide it comes between Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home.