Chloé Zhao Reveals Eternals Wasn’t a Top Marvel Priority

Chloé Zhao just gave a refreshingly candid peek at where Eternals sat on Marvel Studios to-do list and how she ended up making it while also shooting Nomadland. Short version: it was not top priority, and she was juggling a lot.

What Zhao actually said

On the Awards Chatter podcast, Zhao walked through the whole timeline. She was in the mix to direct Black Widow but ultimately passed because it did not feel like her story and the timing collided with Nomadland. The night before she drove to South Dakota to start Nomadland, she pitched Eternals to Marvel. From there, she began hashing out Eternals while filming Frances McDormand on the road.

"Eternals was not like high on [Marvel's] priority list. It is a quite unique IP. With Marvel, they very much need to find the right filmmaker before they say that is the IP we are going to go for. At least at that time."

She also admitted that working on Eternals during Nomadland meant she was splitting her focus more than she liked. Juggling two movies has upside, she said, but it also comes with obvious trade-offs.

How it fits in the MCU picture

Eternals landed in 2021, directed and co-written by Zhao, the Oscar winner behind 2017's The Rider, 2020's Nomadland, and the upcoming 2025 film Hamnet. The reaction was mixed out of the gate. On Rotten Tomatoes, it held the MCU's low-score title until Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania arrived in 2023 and Captain America: Brave New World followed in 2025.

One interesting takeaway from Zhao's comments: Marvel was open to the Eternals idea but did not seem in a hurry. It reads like a case where they were more focused on finding the filmmaker first and then committing to the project itself.

The cast roll call

• Gemma Chan as Sersi
• Richard Madden as Ikaris
• Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo
• Lia McHugh as Sprite
• Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos
• Barry Keoghan as Druig
• Kit Harington as Dane Whitman
• Salma Hayek as Ajak
• Angelina Jolie as Thena

If you want to revisit it (or watch for the first time), Eternals is streaming on Disney+.