Gods among us ETERNALS
Marvel and Chloé Zhao make a bid for immortality…
DIRECTOR Chloé Zhao STARRING Gemma Chan, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, Angelina Jolie
Fresh off her history-making Best Director win for Nomadland, Chloé Zhao is back with Eternals. The brief trailer glimpses so far of Zhao’s first Marvel movie – an adaptation of Jack Kirby’s 1976 comic – look very, well, Zhao-like. Salma Hayek’s wise immortal Ajak, for example, sitting on a horse and looking like she’s straight out of Zhao’s second film, The Rider.
“To me what’s most exciting about Eternals is that world building,” says Zhao. “I love building a world and then you put people in that world and they create this chemistry with each other that you just can never predict, and you have to roll with the punches a little bit once you see that chemistry. It’s exciting for me.”
Featuring a race of superpowered aliens that have walked among us for thousands of years, the big names in Zhao’s ensemble include Angelina Jolie (as Thena) and a beefed-up Kumail Nanjiani (Kingo). But more groundbreakingly, Zhao’s world includes Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, Marvel’s first Deaf hero, and Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, the first openly gay superhero in a Marvel movie.
For those worried that the director’s signature style might be lost, she had as much freedom on Eternals as her earlier work. “They protected me so much that I’m in this little bubble,” says Zhao, who insisted on keeping the “whole army” needed for a blockbuster at arm’s length. “When it comes to big creative decisions, I’m only with three, four people. I don’t think it’s like that everywhere but that’s how it is at Marvel.”