This article doesn’t really seem to have anything particularly new to say. It kind of feels like grist for the content mill.
That said, I’ll take any opportunity given to say that I’m one of the people this movie clearly was for. I liked it a lot, and I think time will be kind to it. I suspect that in hindsight, more folks will recognize it as ahead of its time.
They were new unproven characters, so I understand why they weren’t high on the list. But there is also a lot of possibility with unproven characters.
Look at Guardians of the Galaxy, before the film no one had ever really heard of them, now they’re one of the most popular rides at Disney World. From unknown to mainstream.
Eternals is definitely a fun idea for a film, so I can see why Chloe Zhao was interested in it. The story however just wasn’t quite there. You could drop the whole Deviants story and I don’t think anyone would care, or at least remove the “super” Deviant… Or actually give that character and storyline development.
Plus as she mentioned there are a lot of fun characters, but we’re limited by the time of a film. So we need to either cut some character or switch to a longer form of media.
I hope The Eternals aren’t gone gone and they get a chance to at least finish their story and/or redeem themselves. Look at Thor, Thor had two solo films that were the weakest of the MCU, but he got extra development in the Avengers films and then a reinvention for Thor Ragnarok.
You can’t make the GotG comparison; I think it’s clear that franchise succeeded because of its creative direction, not because they were new characters. You need people who understand the genre and why it works. Zhao may be a great director, and visually the movie was beautiful, but just because you have an Oscar doesn’t mean you can make gold out of everything.
So I think the GotG comparison still works, but I completely agree that the creative direction is the key difference.
Chloe Zhao probably couldn’t have done Guardians and James Gunn probably couldn’t have done Eternals.
I think Zhao saw something in Eternals, something that, based on this article, Feige saw someone who saw something in Eternals. He was wrong. Or Zhao was wrong. Or budget or something.
But I think taking an IP from comics to film/TV is a whole other type of challenge. Look at the early comic book films compared to today. We get very different results.
It wasn’t on anyone’s priority list.
