Eternals MCU Movie Was Not a ‘High Priority,’ Says Chloé Zhao

Eternals director Chloé Zhao has explained why the superhero movie wasn’t a “high priority” for Marvel Studios.

Eternals is the 2021 movie directed and co-written by Zhao, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind other films such as 2017’s The Rider, 2020’s Nomadland, and 2025’s Hamnet. Critical and fan reaction to Eternals was mixed, with this being the MCU movie with the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score until the release of 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and 2025’s Captain America: Brave New World.

What did Chloé Zhao say about Eternals?

Appearing on the Awards Chatter podcast, Zhao opened up about her experience making Eternals. She recalled initially being in the running to direct Black Widow; however, she opted out because it “didn’t feel like the right story” for her.

“Also, it conflicted with Nomadland. I knew Nomadland was the right story for me at that time,” Zhao said.

Zhao said that she pitched the idea for Eternals to Marvel the night before she was about to drive to South Dakota to start production on Nomadland.

“I had to start, in a way, working on the script [for Eternals] while shooting on Nomadland,” she said. “I wasn’t very present at the time. That’s the beginning of me realizing that juggling two films has its benefits, but also has its problems.”

She further explained, “Eternals was not like high on [Marvel’s] priority list. It’s a quite unique IP. It’s on their list of potential — with Marvel, they very much need to find the right filmmaker before they say that’s the IP we’re going to go for. At least at that time.”

Eternals — which stars 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 Harrington as Dane Whitman, Salma Hayek as Ajak, and Angelina Jolie as Thena — is available to stream on Disney+.

Originally reported by Brandon Schreur at SuperHeroHype.

Source: Comingsoon.net