This year will finally see the release of The Eternals, one of the biggest Marvel movies yet. After getting our first peak at the film as revealed in the Marvel Phase 4 trailer, MCU showrunner Kevin Feige stated in a new interview that the time frame of The Eternals will span across 7,000 years.
Here’s what Kevin Feige specifically stated about the passage of time in The Eternals while speaking with Variety:
“[Eternals is] a very bold and very ambitious, sprawling 7,000-year story of humanity and our place in the cosmos.”
Meanwhile, director Chloé Zhao shared some of the influences for The Eternals, which included the original comics created by Jack Kirby. As she revealed:
“Jack Kirby and his imagination, his incredible work, is really the foundation of it. On top of that, there is what Marvel Studios has built, this incredible journey they have going on. And then on top of that is me as a fan of the MCU. And then, me as a fan of the genre, but also growing up with sci-fi and manga and fantasy films. And how can we have this big melting pot and cook up something that may just taste a little bit different? It was just an exciting thing; all of us went in wanting to do that. We’ll see.”
Zhao also elaborated how well she worked with Marvel as a team on the project. Despite this, however, she also insisted that they allowed her to truly fulfill her vision – something she couldn’t have done without the talented people she collaborated with.
“It’s just been such an incredible experience working with the team at Marvel. I want to be careful saying “my vision,” even though I do want people to know they did support what I wanted to do. I want people to know that. But I also want to make sure they know that I got the support of this incredibly talented team, some of the most talented artists in the world. And it really is a village to make this film, but they did let me lead. Yes… Props to Marvel – from early on, they knew the way I wanted to make this film, how I wanted to shoot. It can’t be hundreds of people standing around. So they very much adapted how to run the set the way that I wanted to work. I’m still surrounded by 25 people. They just have armies, and each of them knew they needed to keep the army away.”
It definitely sounds like The Eternals will be an epic worth seeing, especially considering it condenses 7,000 years’ worth of time within the MCU. It’ll be interesting to see what it adds to the franchise and how well these new characters come into play.
The highly anticipated film was directed by Chloé Zhao from a screenplay written by Matthew and Ryan Firpo
The cast features Gemma Chan as Sersi, Richard Madden as Ikaris, Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo, Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Salma Hayek as Ajak, Lia McHugh as Sprite, Don Lee as Gilgamesh, Angelina Jolie as Thena, Barry Keoghan as Druig and Kit Harington as Dane Whitman/Black Knight.
Audiences will be able to see The Eternals on November 5, 2021.