What Were Chloe Zhao’s Initial MCU Expectations From Eternals?

Being a star in a Marvel movie can often be daunting for many. The globally popular franchise has so far, churned in billions at the box office, propelling many filmmakers and actors to new levels of fame and success. While Eternals director Chloé Zhao has an Academy Award under her belt, making a Marvel film is an experience in its own, but as per Zhao, her expectations for working with Marvel Studios ended up lining pretty well with her actual experience. While appearing in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Zhao revealed that she felt quite protected and supported by people that she worked with making the film and that actually allowed her to “play” with her work.

Director Chloe Zhao On Working On Eternals

“I had this feeling being a fan of the MCU and having a good friend in Ryan Coogler and having friends who’ve worked with them,” Zhao said. “It’s actually a lot smaller of a team than you think it is. There’s about three people I speak to on a daily basis. They make big decisions and are one text away. So most of the time, I felt like I was working with the same 25 department heads as I did on Nomadland. The incredible technicians and artists and the thousands of people who helped make this film really, really protected me from the big world out there. They knew how I work best and then they created a really nice bubble for me. If I wanted to fly and go crazy, they’d let me, but if I fell, I knew they were there to catch me. That’s why I could play so much in this.”

Disney and Marvel supported Zhao in a lot of ways – one being, the inclusion of films’ love scene between Ikaris and Sersi.

Zhao even went on to reveal that when it came about that very scene, she was its biggest critic and not the studio

“That has been in the treatment that I read from the beginning,” Zhao said. “We knew that to tell a mature love story, a love story that spans thousands of years, to not do any kind of intimate scene felt unnatural to me. And everyone was on the same page. Once we filmed it and edited it together, we did show some folks to see their reactions. And everyone, Disney as well, said, ‘That is a beautiful display of love,’ [regarding] the way our actors played it together and the way it fit into the mood and where it is in the film. So everyone was like, ‘Let’s do it!’ If anything, I was the one who was like, ‘Is it okay? Can we do this?’ But everyone was supportive of that.”

Eternals is already in the theaters while Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will be available for streaming on Disney+ on November 12th.