Showrunner says an ‘Eternals’ TV series was planned before movie, it’s ‘so weird’ and version is ‘good’
In 2015 it was revealed that John Ridley, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave Join the Marvel Family Developing a mystery superhero project for ABC. The network was already home to Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. at the time and had just announced a spin-off series prior to the Ridley news. Widely acclaimed for his anthology series American Crime. Arguably, Ridley’s Marvel project never came to fruition.
Fast forward eight years, Ridley finally revealed “Comics Club” Podcast As early as Marvel decided to cooperate with director Zhao Ting and actors such as Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry, Barry Keoghan, Salma, etc. Before making the “Eternals” movie, he was producing an “Eternals” TV series for Marvel. Hayek, Angelina Jolie, etc.
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“It’s not made anymore,” Ridley said. “It’s the TV version of The Eternals … but it’s good. My version is the good version. It’s fucking weird. There’s my version, one Good version, that’s good for me, that–that doesn’t make any sense. There’s a version that’s [Marvel] “Eventually I did it, but I don’t think that version was particularly good. To be honest.”
Marvel’s “The Eternals” movie was widely considered a critical and box office disappointment. The film’s global box office of $402 million was well below Marvel’s usual standards, despite being released in 2021 during the pandemic and between Marvel’s other 2021 film “Black Widow.” ($379 million, also on Disney+) and Shang-Chi ($432 million). Prior to Ant-Man and the Wasp’s release, the film had the worst Rotten Tomatoes score of any Marvel movie (47%), and this year’s reviews are even more dismal (46%).
“My version starts like this…The first thing you see is a young man, probably about 18 years old. He’s sitting there, and he puts his hands up. He has a drill bit inside. Then he turns the drill bit on, and he puts the drill bit in the air. into his ear and he started pushing it in. And it just went from there,” Ridley said. “That’s how it starts, right? That’s how it starts. And then I think you see the other kid… he’s sleeping in the tub with a quilt over him.” “He uses foil on his own. It’s just A really weird story about these people, I mean, it’s just weird.”
Ridley noted that the Eternals comics were “a very difficult property to develop,” and he fully understands why his TV series never took off given how polarizing it was.
“The best thing for everyone is that it didn’t happen to me because I didn’t know it would be funny,” Ridley added. “I mean, the funny thing for me is It’s often not fun. Populism, that’s great for a lot of the work I do, but that needs to be a little more popular.”
Listen to Ridley’s full appearance on the show The “Comics Club” podcast is here.
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