Marvel Studios has returned to cinemas with arguably its most ambitious film to date, with Eternals being a star-studded ensemble piece featuring some of the most powerful beings in the universe.
Rather than the measured build-up we saw the studio take towards each Avengers film, this latest effort introduces a horde of characters all at once with Academy Award-winning director Chloé Zhao steering the ship.
Its minimal connections with previous films in the franchise are intended to make this more accessible than the likes of Avengers: Endgame or Black Widow, both of which required varying amounts of context to understand.
As producer Nate Moore told Toronto Sun in a recent interview: “If you just watch Eternals, you can enjoy Eternals, you can understand Eternals and you’re good to go.”
For the last year, fans and pundits had assumed that this new blockbuster would be a sure-fire hit, owing to the stellar Eternals cast and the intense brand loyalty movie-goers have to the bright red Marvel Studios banner.
However, some decidedly mixed reviews out of the gate are now throwing that into doubt, causing some to wonder whether this will indeed turn into a major new franchise, or rather settle for one-and-done.
Read on for everything we know so far about a possible Eternals 2.
Eternals 2 release date rumours
Given that most Marvel franchises have naturally turned into trilogies (Iron Man, Captain America), while some have even gone beyond three entries (Thor, Avengers), it had been assumed by fans that Eternals would get a follow-up in the near future.
However, recent comments from Marvel Studios producer Moore have suggested that may not be the case, with the executive putting emphasis on the idea of Eternals as a self-contained chapter in the MCU saga.
Discussing a possible Eternals 2, he told Toronto Sun: “It’s not something that is a must-have. Obviously, we have ideas of where we could go, but there isn’t a hard and fast rule where we have to have three of these things and this is the first.”
That’s a markedly different outlook to director Zhao, who seemed enthusiastic about the idea of a sequel in an earlier interview with The Playlist.
“We got to play and do whatever we want and make a strong standalone film and leave everything on the table,” she said. “I would be back in a second working with the team at Marvel for sure. So we’ll see.”
It seems the jury is out within Marvel Studios over whether Eternals will continue, with the deciding factor likely to be those all-important box office results.
Eternals 2 cast
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If Marvel were to push ahead with Eternals 2, it is likely that the film’s epic ensemble cast would reprise their roles, including Gemma Chan (Sersi), Richard Madden (Ikaris), Angelina Jolie (Thena) and Kit Harington as mortal man Dane Whitman.
The Eternals cast also includes Salma Hayek (Ajak), Kumail Nanjiani (Kingo), Lia McHugh (Sprite), Brian Tyree Henry (Phastos), Lauren Ridloff (Makkari), Barry Keoghan (Druig) and Don Lee (Gilgamesh).
The blockbuster made headlines weeks before release when it was revealed that pop star turned actor Harry Styles would be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the role of Eros aka Starfox, the brother of Josh Brolin’s Thanos.
Giant Freakin Robot reports from an unnamed source that Styles has signed a contract for five Marvel movies and is hoped to become a major player in the franchise, although take this with a pinch of salt for now.
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Still, it seems like a reasonable expectation that the former One Direction member would make his full introduction in an Eternals sequel, which would give us a better idea of what to expect from his character moving forward.
Zhao has also teased in a recent interview that her Nomadland collaborator Frances McDormand could be eyeing a role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
When asked if the two-time Oscar winner would be interested in joining the franchise, Zhao told Yahoo’s Kevin Polowy: “I think she wants to. I think she’s open to it, yeah… I think she’ll want to something really fun. I think she would want to do something unexpected because that’s Fran. She’s always challenging herself.”
Intriguingly, the director answered “no comment” when grilled on whether she had discussed Marvel projects with McDormand, with the Fargo and Three Billboards star sure to be near the top of Kevin Feige’s wish-list.
Eternals 2 plot: What could happen next?
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Marvel is always very secretive about which stories it has planned, so we can only speculate about what the plot of Eternals 2 would be at this stage.
One of the key questions is whether the cosmic beings will crossover with the established heroes of the MCU, with all talk thus far describing them as existing in their own space.
“We felt like there was enough story that it could be a contained universe,” producer Moore told Toronto Sun. “We definitely have ideas of how things can cross over later.
“But this movie with 10 characters and Dane Whitman and the Celestials and the Deviants, there was enough for us to play with,” he added.
That said, we may see our first major interaction between the Eternals and the wider MCU in the second season of Marvel’s What If on Disney Plus, with head writer AC Bradley teasing more Phase Four characters in the next run of episodes.
“Going into the second season, we’re sticking with anthology form, and it’s going to be all-new stories, lots of fun, new heroes, and pulling more from Phase Four than we were obviously able to this season,” she told Entertainment Weekly.
“Hopefully, we’ll see hints of Eternals and Shang-Chi and the Black Widow characters. The fun of What If…? is that we get to explore the entire infinite multiverse, so we try and bounce around as much as we can.”
Is there an Eternals 2 trailer?
There’s no trailer for Marvel’s Eternals 2 just yet. Heck, we don’t even know if the film is going to get made at this point. But even if it does get the green light, we wouldn’t expect footage from the sequel anytime soon.
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