WithAvengers: Endgamelooming on the horizon to put an epic end to Marvel’s 22-movie Infinity Stones storyline, it’s hard to comprehend the fact that the MCU will, in fact, continue right along once the dust has settled into a Phase 4. One of the more low-key (notLoki) exciting projects being discussed isEternals, a big-screen adaptation of theJack Kirby-created celestial beings that count Thanos the Mad Titan as one of their own.
Not much has been said since the studioset screenwriting duoMatthewandRyan Firpoon the case last May andThe RiderhelmerChloe Zhaoto directlast September, but our own Steve Weintraub managed to get a bit of an update from Marvel presidentKevin Feigeduring an interview at the press day forCaptain Marvel. According to Feige, the plan is not only to introduce the Eternals as a full ensembleGuardians of the Galaxy-style, but to also lean into what made Kirby’s run in the 1970s so complex.
“Everything afterEndgame, and afterSpider-Man: Far From Home, will be different and be unique, as we try to make every film. But seeing returning characters is certainly something we’re gonna do and want to do. But also introducing characters that the majority of the world has never heard of, much likeGuardians, much likeAvengersbefore we madeAvengers. And there are lots of them.Eternalsare one group, but we like the idea of introducing an ensemble, doing an ensemble movie from the start, as opposed to building up as we did with the firstAvengers. More likeGuardians, not tonally, but in terms of introducing a new group of people. You were asking about ’60s, and ’70s before. Jack Kirby did an immense, amazing epic withEternalsthat spans tens of thousands of years, and that’s also something we haven’t really done, which is why that among many other things post-Endgame, we find appealing.”
The important thing to hone in on between the Marvel-speak is that the studio is exploring and interested in things they “haven’t really done.” I know that sounds extremely obvious, but it wasn’t really until 2014’sGuardians—an origin story of a little-known team of outer-space oddballs with mostly-comedianChris Prattin the lead—that the MCU showed hints of getting truly weird with the Marvel formula. Since then,Doctor Strangeplayed around with reality,Black Panthergave a filmmaker with a singular vision and something to say free reign to make comic book movie history, and, right,Avengers: Infinity Warkilled a majority of its main characters. EvenThor: Ragnarokborrowed handily from that unmistakable Jack Kirby art style. But for an MCU movie to reallydoKirby, king of interplanetary gods and weirdos? Maybe a post-Endgameworld really will look completely different, after all.
Be on the lookout for the rest of Steve’s interview with Kevin Feige on Collider soon, coveringCaptain Marvel,Avengers: Endgame, and a lot more.
