While it looks to end the year strong with Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home setting presale records at the box office, it’s fair to say that 2021 hasn’t been the best of years for Marvel Studios’ Disney-distributed movies.
The pandemic has obviously played a huge part, but Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Eternals all trail Sony’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage when it comes the year’s highest grossing comic book movies, and sit just above The Incredible Hulk and Captain America: The First Avenger in terms of the lowest earners of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Not only that, but the Chloe Zhao-directed Eternals became the first instalment in the MCU to suffer a ‘Rotten’ rating on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, putting to an end a 25-movie ‘Fresh’ streak that’s surely unlikely to be surpassed by another franchise or studio any time soon (if ever).
Eternals was intended to usher in a new era for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and so Disney and Marvel will be hoping that the movie can now find a new audience on Disney+ when it arrives on the streaming platform in January. As announced by Disney+, Eternals will join 13th other MCU movies which are available to stream in the IMAX Enhanced format, and will be available free to all subscribers from January 12th 2022.
“Marvel Studios’ Eternals features an exciting new team of Super Heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ancient aliens who have been living on Earth in secret for thousands of years. Following the events of Avengers: Endgame, an unexpected tragedy forces them out of the shadows to reunite against mankind’s most ancient enemy, The Deviants.”
Eternals is directed by Chloe Zhao (The Rider) and features a cast that includes Angelina Jolie (Maleficent) as Thena, Richard Madden (Bodyguard) as Ikaris, Don Lee (Train to Busan) as Gilgamesh, Salma Hayek (The Hitman’s Bodyguard) as Ajak, Lauren Ridloff (The Walking Dead) as Makkari, Brian Tyree Henry (Child’s Play) as Phastos, Lia McHugh (American Woman) as Sprite, Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick) as Kingo, Kit Harington (Game of Thrones) as Dane Whitman, Gemma Chan (Captain Marvel) as Sersi and Barry Keoghan (Dunkirk) as Druig.
