Eternals Interview: Matthew ('Kaz') Firpo & Ryan Firpo

This interview contains spoilers for Eternals.

Marvel's Eternals introduced a whole new group of superhumans into the MCU - ancient aliens who had lived on Earth for 7,000 years. Based on the characters created by the legendary Jack Kirby, Eternals is unlike anything seen before in the MCU. It's a blend of cosmic spectacle and some of the franchise's most intimate character-work, and it has been consistently described as more of a cosmic love story than anything else.

The Eternals have clearly been positioned to be a major force in the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Eternals' final act threatened to destroy the entire world and left humanity looking on with surprise at what they believed to be a giant statue that had suddenly been raised from the sea depths. The film set up Kit Harington as the MCU's Black Knight, and its post-credits scene went further to introduce Thanos' brother Starfox, who most comic book readers had never expected to enter the MCU.

Screen Rant had the opportunity to speak exclusively to screenwriters Ryan and Matthew ('Kaz') Firpo, cousins who worked together on the project. They discussed their original plans for the movie, the effect of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3's delay, their dream projects continuing the story of the Eternals, and the future of the MCU itself.

Screen Rant: We know Marvel's plans changed quite a bit, so originally Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was supposed to begin Phase 4, and Eternals got bumped forward. How did that change of plans affect pre-production and development of Eternals?

Kaz Firpo: There's one very concrete thing that literally did happen because of this, and we are allowed to talk about this I'm pretty sure! The short version, really, is that we were in the room, in this windowless room writing nine drafts of the movie, and we just knew from the beginning that Kumail Nanjiani was Kingo, that was his voice - Ryan and I are big fans, Ryan had watched every season of Silicon Valley.

And we were really writing this character for him, and when we brought it to [producer Nate Moore] and the powers-that-be at Marvel, they were like, "We love Kumail, but actually he's in Guardians of the Galaxy 3, James Gunn wrote a role for him." And we were like, "Oh, it's such a bummer, he's perfect for this role, it's so good," and they were like, "James wins, it's James Gunn." And then we were literally in the office when everything went down, with that delay... I mean, I think it started filming yesterday. But yeah, the whole delay happened with Guardians, which miraculously opened the door for Kumail to step into our film, so I think that's just one of those meant-to-be moments. I'm a little disappointed about the delay personally, as a fan, but as a filmmaker, I'm very grateful, because I think no one could've pulled it off quite like Kumail.

Did it affect you in terms of the scripts? How far developed were the scripts at that point?

Ryan Firpo: I think that because Eternals is such a siloed movie, that's part of the narrative that they were not allowed to intervene, that it didn't really impact. The order that things came out in didn't really change the narrative for Phase 4 holistically, so... since we're in such an early phase of Phase 4, it's all about laying all the groundwork, and all these things are going to come together. But things are not so linear, and so tight, there's not a singular narrative just yet that we're all tying into. So it was okay to shift things around a little bit and get all the big pieces out there.

We know two members of the Eternals were actually cut from the original scripts. What roles did those characters have?

Kaz Firpo: They were... let's say compendiums of all the other things. When you're writing a movie, it's like keeping a thousand-piece puzzle in your mind, and you're trying to keep track of all the edges and the characters and the connections. Confirming that they were in fact the old man Zuras, former legendary leader of the Eternals, who we loved and who I think is a fantastic character, but I think we all realized in the room that he's too good a character. There's so much richness there, and Ajak and Zuras were at odds conceptually within the family, and so it became a pretty logical choice with Chloe [Zhao], and Nate [Moore], and Kevin [Feige], to be like, "We love this character, but I think... leave some room for what comes next."

Ryan Firpo: And Zuras' role, and a lot of his characteristics, kinda got folded into Gilgamesh. I think in the early drafts, Zuras was the one who went and took care of Thena and lived with her out in Australia.

But we realized there was a lot of crossover between Zuras and Ajak because Ajak was the clear leader but Zuras was in the canon the one-time leader. So we just kind of folded pieces of each character into Gilgamesh.

And the other character was Valkin, who was actually a healer, and it was a really funny situation because it was Valkin in the past but in the present day he was a luchador in Mexico, and his character was Vampiro. So it was a weird thing, a kind of two-for-one Eternal cameo in there. But then we decided to fold Valkin's healing powers into Ajak, and just condensed because there's a lot going on in this movie so the fewer characters the better.

Zuras looms over Thena and Makkari in Marvel Comics.

Was Ikaris always the villain, or did plans change at some points during the drafts?

Kaz Firpo: Yeah, emotionally and structurally we knew from the very early conceptions this was a movie that was about responsibility versus family. Do you choose your duty as a soldier over the family that you love and the humans that you've been here to protect? And that was really the mission, to explore that morality and the gray area of both fighting a war, of soldiers, of a mission, and we knew that to make a film that really dove into that complexity, that moral gray area, which is something that we were really excited about as artists and something Marvel was really ready to tackle.

I mean, there are people who are on Team Thanos in the Avengers, who don't see him as a villain, and I think that was something that we were really interested in taking that baton and writing with it, so it was always in the conception that there would be this villain turn or this sort of twist. And really, the twist is not in the place of trying a 'gotcha' to the audience, it's really about exploring thematic power, like, "Is anyone truly bad if they believe what they're doing is right?"

Ryan Firpo: Yeah, just to dig into that deeper, it's like family versus responsibility - you could also say logic versus emotion. And so we wanted all these characters to be tested by this debate, including Ikaris. And Ikaris faces perhaps the biggest test at the end of the movie, so it was really a kind of thematic choice that stemmed from the idea of exploring immortal characters who are also dealing with the weight and responsibility of being superheroes forever, basically, for eternity.

Kaz Firpo: They don't get to hang up the cape, you know? They don't get to retire like Cap.

One of the things that's quite striking about Eternals - they may be called 'Eternals' but the film doesn't mind killing them off! How were the kills decided?

Kaz Firpo: It always comes from a place of emotion, I think Ryan said this earlier. I'll just say it, I've seen the movie like four times now at least with an audience in the movie theater, they didn't know I was there, I was just lurking, which is an amazing experience. The Gilgamesh death... we wanted to make sure that you really cared about the people we were losing, that was really important to us. It wasn't like we just went and reached into the Eternals cap and said, "Sorry, Gil, it's your turn." I really knew that for Thena's journey, for her arc to really mean something, that she had to lose someone. And we also needed to make sure that the stakes were high. That, yes, you are... you're immortal, but you're not invincible, and I think that was an important thing. If you can't kill them, then why are we watching this movie?

Ryan Firpo: Yeah, Ajak's death was obviously essential just to getting the whole plot going. We needed the leader to basically be taken out so there was a bit of a power vacuum, and then there would be a situation with Ikaris versus Sersi as things moved forward, propelling us to the end.

Did you ever want to explore Thanos' connection to the Eternals and the Deviants a bit more closely?

Kaz Firpo: There's a version, I think there's even a flashback - correct me if I'm wrong, Ryan. We had a sequence where... if you recall, in Infinity War, Thanos takes you to his homeworld. He's like, "This is the home planet that was devastated by growth, by radical growth in the universe", and he's like, "This is why - because I lost my homeworld - I have to destroy half the galaxy, to save the other half."

So there was... I don't wanna say a lot more, but there was definitely a distinct connection point to Thanos and to everything that had happened. But in the telling of it, there was a lot of... movie in this movie. So we wanted something where you could pay attention to the Eternals, to the Eternals' mythology, not get lost trying to remember some tenuous connection to Endgame.

Ryan Firpo: Yeah, and I think it's... building on that, there is a lot more, and this is not the end of the Eternals' story, and we will get to explore these things... but to explore it all in one movie, like Kaz said, there's already a lot in here.

Thanos Josh Brolin on Titan Avengers Infinity War

Was A'Lars, Thanos' father who was teased in Avengers: Infinity War, ever a part of the story at all?

Kaz Firpo: We were actually, like, powerfully familiar with the crazy Thanos origin story, which I'm pretty sure is full-blown Greek myth where he, like, killed his own mother I wanna say... It's been a little bit since I read those arcs, we did a deep-dive into Thanos...

Ryan Firpo: She rejected him.

Kaz Firpo: Yeah, he was born from an Eternal and raised as a Deviant, and he's sort of caught in between the two, so there is a lot of... again, that early connective tissue. But I think, for the sake of this movie as a film, we really just decided to tell this story, and maybe when we get out into the cosmos you might...

I mean, we're literally meeting Thanos' actual brother at the end of the film, and I think there's room for Eros - well, Harry [Styles] - to have a conversation about that. I think that Starfox is a lot responsible for why Thanos is the way he is... all jokes aside, to have this perfect brother who can make anyone fall in love with him? It does something to you. So I hope we get to see a little bit more of that in Number 2.

One thing that's been interesting, watching the response to Eternals, is how certain characters have really stood out. The fans seem to have been particularly enthused by Druig and Makkari, did you expect that to be something that caught the fans' attention so much?

Ryan Firpo: That was really something that Chloe [Zhao] really brought to it in the production.

Kaz Firpo: I would say it's something that Barry [Keoghan]...

Ryan Firpo: Oh, yeah Barry and Lauren [Ridloff], yeah.

Kaz Firpo: They just had this charisma and this magnetism. We literally cast Lauren off this New York Times article, we just sent it to the casting director, two weeks later they were like, "She's in the movie."

Lauren's a force of nature, she's really incredible, but I would say the same about Barry - Barry just eats up his scenes, and he has some of my favorite scenes in the whole movie, and I never expected that necessarily in the script phase. It was a moment where a great director recognizes something great happening, that they can't plan for. Candidly, it was never really in any draft. It was something that came naturally when they were on set, everyone was like, "Man, this is such a natural, fun little thing," and they sort of let them play.

Ryan Firpo: I actually remember even really early versions where even Druig and Sersi had a weird little thing. So it created a complexity when they went to pick Druig up, and he rejected them, and it created a lot more tension and there was a little love triangle thing, but we moved away from that. I'm really happy with the Makkari-Druig chemistry, it's a really nice addition to the movie.

If you had the opportunity to write a spin-off that starred just one of these Eternals, which one would you choose?

Kaz Firpo: That's a great and fun question. I have an answer that's a not-an-answer, but I'm sure Ryan has his own. My answer, I would do a ten-part Disney+ series and the first episode would be Kingo in 1920s India, hanging out with Gandhi, working on the decolonization of India from the British.

Each episode would tackle a really big moment in time, but it would also be like, maybe Sprite would show up for a little bit, Gil comes and says he's put Thena to sleep so [he] could go to Fiji. I would love to do an episode with Gilgamesh in Fiji just for an hour when he takes his little vacation. And I would do an episode with Thena in ancient Greece during the Peloponnesian War, and I would love to take these stories, these one lines that we have... Or Sprite, working as Merlin in King Arthur's court, and it wasn't actually Merlin, it was actually Sprite dressing herself as this old man because no one would take her seriously.

There are so many chances to explore that and to do one-shots where each episode is one Eternal's story for an hour. And yet you might get Angelina Jolie to show up for five minutes here and five minutes there, but it's really one person's story. That would be a dream project. But also we're really excited to go to the cosmos as well.

Ryan Firpo: I would do... Shadow Warrior the movie, just straight up the movie, and it's not even referencing his life as an Eternal, it's just the Shadow Warrior movie.

Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo in Eternals movie.

One thing that makes Eternals stand out from the rest of the films is that it doesn't have any Avengers cameos. And that's quite rare. Was that always the plan or did you plan for Avengers cameos at some points?

Kaz Firpo: There was a version where Sam [Wilson] turned up at the very, very end, in one of the post-credit [scenes], but I think it was something that... You're going to see these worlds collide, but it's gonna take a little bit longer than people are gonna expect.

Plus, I think in terms of the timeline, we just lost Tony, we just lost Cap, Natasha's gone, Hulk is currently working on himself I think to make himself human rather than smart Hulk, so I think that all the Avengers were just pretty busy. I think we're happening more or less concurrently with Falcon and Winter Soldier, so everyone's got their hands full and I think you're gonna start to see the groundwork has been laid for something that's gonna happen in a very big way soon.

Eternals ended on quite a strong cliffhanger. Do you already have in mind how you'd like that resolved, or is it a bit more up in the air right now?

Ryan Firpo: The analogy that I use a lot is that, if you're playing chess, then your objective is to checkmate the opponent, but you don't know exactly how you're gonna do that - you're setting up a bunch of paths to victory, and I think Kevin and everybody at Marvel are brilliant chess players, and they know how to set those pieces up and give themselves multiple paths to victory. So while there is not specifically the exact storyline, we have a lot of ideas of where we could go, and it'll be based on a lot of other variables that come to fruition.

Kaz Firpo: I think the words "intergalactic rescue mission" are pretty clearly where we're gonna have to go.

Alien intervention has become a really common trope in sci-fi at the moment - you see it in every Transformers movie - but Eternals feels very different to those. How did you make Eternals stand out from the rest?

Kaz Firpo: I spent a lot of my university experience studying classics, and the ancient world. I worked in an archaeological dig in Egypt for four months in my senior year, literally just in the western desert digging through the sand, and so there's numerous homages to those experiences, all the way to the Domo itself, down to the archaeologists working in Babylon. And so for us, we really wanted to take you places you hadn't seen before. We weren't just gonna do Camelot, and the pyramids, and some pirates, we wanted to show you this is a very diverse world, it's a very different world, and there were a lot of places that I think you don't traditionally get to see in movies. So that was a mandate from the beginning, for all the creative team, "Let's go somewhere new."

And that's really what Eternals is as a film; we wanna show you something new. I mean, spoiler alert, a gigantic god inside the Earth holding an island in his hand certainly isn't something I've seen in a movie. And we like to say this a lot, when we were writing this film, there was no "intergalactic immortals space-god love story" that we could watch, there was no reference point for Eternals, it just is. It's the first movie ever to try to do this crazy stuff. And so doing a gonzo sci-fi movie was an honor, so we tried to make it special, we tried to make it different, that's something that was always in the DNA.

Ryan Firpo: Yeah, and I think also there's a lot of alien intervention plots, but in ours, their mission is to not intervene. It's to essentially blend in. So it is an intergalactic space mission, but it's a lot more anthropological, basically, where they're there to study humanity, and learn to think and be human. Which is antithetical to a lot of other alien intervention movies.

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