Marvel Studios’ Eternals had quite the potential to be the next big ensemble hero-featured hit franchise of its own. But the failure of the movie altered the wind of it in a different direction. The box office failure of the 2021 movie was not the only factor to the potential end; or at least, the blurry future of the movie; the dismay among critics also mattered to a great extent.
But the movie has a lot to celebrate, including the cast. Hollywood veteran Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, and several other stars graced the movie. But in one aspect, the movie surpasses almost every other Marvel movie released to date. Thanks to director, Chloé Zhao, as was revealed in the Marvel Studios documentary, Assembled: The Making of Eternals.
Assembled: The Making of Eternals Revealed Why Eternals Is Ahead Of Other Marvel Movies In This Regard
Other than the stunning and varied cast, Marvel’s Elernal had the ultimate creative freedom as the project roped in Chloé Zhao, who has an Oscar to her credit for her Frances McDormand-starrer 2020 neo-Western drama, Nomadland. Zhao helming the project was the next big thing to a promise as the director pushed the project to the boundaries of the studio to film the movie on location. The movie was filmed on Spain’s Canary Islands and some other sites.
“You want to see the character in relationship to the world behind them. It’s very difficult to make that feel real on stage. So going to a location was a very natural progression,” Zhao said in Assembled: The Making of Eternals (via Variety).
Superhero movies, in particular, are rare to have the most real location filming as the majority of superhero movies or rather action movies are filmed inside studios, mostly because of the convenience and reducing the overall cost.
But Zhao’s vision for the movie and her license to do the movie on her terms have created an astounding record of the movie being one of the most on-site shot Marvel projects.
Will There Be Eternals 2?
Despite the poor box office and critical reception, Eternals made quite a splash among fans assuming a potential sequel on the card. However, as far as the assurance is concerned, the project is dangling on a ‘maybe’ considering the recent updates. Previously, Zaho has shown her acute interest in returning to the project to direct. “I would be back in a second working with the team at Marvel for sure,” she told The Playlist.
However, as the uncertainty of the project was soaring, her comment on the potential sequel also turned hazy as she bluntly replied to The Hollywood Reporter in March last year, “No comment,” upon the query regarding the sequel.
Eternals producer and vice president of production and development at Marvel Studios Nate Moore had rather sad news for the movie, “It’s not something that is a must-have,” he told The Toronto Sun.
“Obviously, we have ideas of where we could go, but there isn’t a hard and fast rule where we have to have three of these things and this is the first,” he added.
Marvel boss Kevin Feige has rather peculiar enthusiasm for Harry Styles‘ Starfox and Patton Oswalt’s Pip the Troll. “The adventures of Eros and Pip is something that is very exciting for us,” Feige told MTV News at San Diego Comic-Con 2022.
So, what does it mean for the project? Styles’ post-credit cameo was definitely promising but as of Eternals 2, the studio seemingly has no interest in putting it in the calendar of theatrical releases, but Marvel is also not in line with entirely giving up the idea of a sequel, it is hard to tell.
Stream Eternals and Assembled: The Making of Eternals on Disney+.
