Marvel has been teasing bits about the Eternals film for awhile now and there have been some enticing bits, though understanding that the company is mostly focused on promotion the Avengers: Endgame film. With a lot of news expected this summer about their slate of films after this one, Deadline is reporting that Angelina Jolie is in talks for the project in a leading role. There aren’t any details beyond that but it wouldn’t be the first time she’s tackled comics property after Wanted and other more genre-y fare such as Tomb Raider. Jolie is currently slated for Disney’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil film.
Marvel’s Kevin Feige was out talking up the press in advance of Captain Marvel and talked the film itself up a bit, stating:
“Eternals are 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 first Avengers. More like Guardians, 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 with Eternals that 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 comics were produced originally in the 1970’s by Jack Kirby with some really neat designs and ideas behind it but they’ve never been heavily used in the comics continuity overall. We’ve had some references to them in brief in the cinematic side though so it makes sense to try and explore more of that.
The studio recently brought on some writers to put it into more formal development to see what can happen with Matthew and Ryan Firpo, who got some notice last year for the spec script Ruin that was quite well regarded on the 2017 Black List.
The film, which is undated, has Chloe Zhao directing it. Her most recent work was The Rider which like most of her projects sees her as the writer and director along with producing credits as well, though the majority of her works are short films. Check out the 2015 film Songs My Brothers Taught Me and the 2017 film The Rider.
There’s been a bit more of an embrace on the cinematic side for some of the more “outlandish” elements that made up a good chunk of what Kirby really worked on over the years, notably in Thor: Ragnarok, so it’s exciting to think more of his material will be coming out – and reinforcing the cosmic side that the next ten years looks to embrace.
Property Concept: Deep in the God Chamber, archeologist Daniel Damien and his daughter Margot learn from their assistant, Ike Harris (aka Ikaris, an Eternal) that he must activate the Cosmic Beacon deep within the God Chamber! But Deviants Kro and Brother Tode have another plan for Ikaris in mind…
[Source: Deadline]
