Know Your Eternals: Chloé Zhao’s Next Movie Is Marvel!
Last night, at the 93rd Academy Awards on Sunday, April 25th, 2021, Chloé Zhao won the Award for Best Director for her work on Nomadland starring Fances McDormand. The movie, which was distributed by Searchlight Pictures (a Disney-owned studio), was also awarded Best Picture. Zhao is the first woman of color to win the award, and the second woman, after Kathryn Bigelow, who took home the 2010 award for The Hurt Locker, to win.
Director/Producer Chloé Zhao, winner of the award for best picture for “Nomadland,” poses in the press room at the Oscars on Sunday, April 25, 2021, at Union Station in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, Pool)
But what is the Marvel Studios film Eternals, what is Zhao’s connection, and what should Marvel fans expect from the upcoming release from the Best Director winner (other than awesomeness)?
Where Are the Eternals?
Marvel Blog True Believers are probably most familiar with Chloé Zhao because of a project that has yet to be released: Eternals. The upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movie is currently scheduled for release in theaters on November 5th, 2021. Zhao is both writer and director of the upcoming project.
Richard Madden and Chloé Zhao at San Diego Comic-Con. Photo: Getty/Alberto E. Rodriguez
The movie was originally meant to be released on November 6th, 2020. However, because of unavoidable delays caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the movie was pushed back to February 2021, and then again to its current release date on November 5th, 2021.
However, director Chloé Zhao took advantage of the extra time to re-shoot a few scenes of the highly-anticipated film this summer. Eternals star Lauren Ridloff revealed in a November 2020 interview with HeyUGuys, “We were doing re-shoots actually… it was great to be back on set working, and it’s great to get this news.”
Photo: IMDb
Who Are the Eternals?
Although we don’t know much about the Eternals plot or characters yet, Kevin Feige confirmed that the Celestials and Deviants are indeed part of the film. According to COMINGSOON.net, Feige was quoted as saying:
[The Eternals is] an epic that spans 7,000 years of human history, has cosmic connotations, and changes everything we know about the MCU. It’s ambitious, and takes…from present-day to Mesopotamia to all sorts of locations and time periods and really feels like nothing we’ve done before.
We will see the Celestials in their full, true, enormous power in Eternals, yes. Deviants are in the film. The Deviants in the comic book mythology were…extremely important plans of the Celestials…and we will see Deviants that look unlike anything we’ve seen in the comics. This is a new form of Deviants that we’ll see in the movie.
For Marvel Blog’s rundown of what we expect the plot of the Eternals film to be check out the article, Know Your Marvel Movies: The Eternals, or read some of our comic book suggestions below!
Hope Springs!
The Eternals were first introduced The Eternals #1 (1976) by Jack Kirby, John Verpoorten, Gaspar, and Glynis Wein. You can read all 19 issues of that series, plus the 1977 Annual, on the Marvel Unlimited App right now.
Photo: Marvel Comics
The Eternals series was cancelled without the resolution of the plot lines. However, they did reappear in the panels of Thor Annual #7 (1978) by Roy Thomas, Walt Simonson, Ernie Chan, Glynis Wein, and Tom Orzechowski.
Photo: Marvel Comics
And that’s not all, Marvel Blog True Believers! That Annual was followed by a ten-issue story line that began in The Mighty Thor #291 by Thomas, Keith Pollard, Chic Stone, Wein, and Joe Rosen.
Photo: Marvel Comics
Just like Kirby’s original series, you can read all of these issues of Thor on the Marvel Unlimited App, to ensure you’re completely caught up when Eternals arrives in theaters in November 2021.
A Brief History of Chloé Zhao
Chloé Zhao was born in Beijing, China, and her debut feature, Songs My Brothers Taught Me, which she wrote, directed, produced, and edited, made its debut at Sundance in 2015.
Photo: Vanity Fair
In 2017, The Rider was released, which she wrote, directed, and produced.
And 2020 saw the release of Chloé Zhao’s multi-award winning Nomadland, which she wrote, directed, produced, and edited.
Photo: Bart’s Books in Ojai, California
Zhao currently resides in Ojai, California, where she lives with two dogs and three chickens.
Eternals on the way
Will you be heading to the theaters to see the Oscar-winning Chloé Zhao MCU debut this autumn? Marvel Blog wants to hear from you! Leave us a comment and let us know.
Featured Image: Chloé Zhao Oscar Image by Matt Petit/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images/Marvel Blog
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[…] In addition to plenty of tantalizing details about the upcoming Phase Four movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this sizzle reel also included your first look at Eternals, the highly-anticipated upcoming movie helmed by none other than the Oscar Award-winning Chloé Zhao, who was recently awarded the Academy Award for Best Director. […]