Way back in the early days of Marvel Television circa 2015, Oscar-winning writer J0hn Ridley (12 Years a Slave) signed on to create a Marvel show for ABC, which would have featured alongside the network’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter had it not fizzled out during development.
While previous rumours had suggested that the project would have focussed on the character of Kamala Kahn / Ms. Marvel, Ridley has now revealed to the Comic Book Club podcast the abandoned series was actually “a television version of The Eternals… but good.”
“My version was the good version, it was so fucking weird,” said Ridley, before going on to throw further shade at the 2021 movie from director Chloe Zhao. “There was my version, a good version, which is good to me, which — that doesn’t mean anything. There was the version that [Marvel] ended up doing, which I don’t think… that version was particularly good. I’ll be honest.”
Offering a hint perhaps at why ABC decided to pass on the project, Ridley went on to explain that “My version started with, the first thing you see is a young man, probably about 18 years old, and he’s sitting there. He’s sitting there for a moment. And then he lifts his hands. He has a drill in it. And he turns the drill on. And he puts the drill to his ear. And he starts pushing it in. And then it goes from there. That’s the start, right? That’s how it starts. And then I think you see… another kid… he sleeps in the bathtub, covers himself with foil. It’s just a really weird story about these people who are, I mean, it’s just weird.”
“It was a really hard property to develop”, Ridley continued, adding that he ultimately felt that “the best thing to happen for everybody was that it didn’t happen with me, because I don’t know that it would have been entertaining. And I do mean what’s entertaining to me is often not entertaining. Populist, which is great for a lot of the work I do, but this needed to be a little bit more popular.”
Chloe Zhao’s feature version of Eternals was released post-pandemic in 2021 and also could have done with being a little bit more popular; the film grossed just over $400 million at the box office, but also became the first Marvel Studios movie to receive a Rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes after failing to impress critics. Talk of Eternals 2 seems to have fallen completely silent too, with Zhao offering “no comment” when last asked about the sequel back in March of last year.
What do you make of John Ridley’s comments on Marvel Studios’ Eternals, and are you disappointed we didn’t get to see his “weird” take on the property? Let us know on our socials @FlickeringMyth…
“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 stars 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.
Via Deadline
