Thena Archives - Page 2 Of 3

May 3, 2021

Marvel Offers 1st Look At Eternals And Upcoming Film Slate

What will it take to get moviegoers back into theaters? Hollywood has been asking themselves that question a lot recently: things were looking up for a moment with the success of Godzilla Vs Kong, but Mortal Kombat‘s limited mainstream appeal made it a poor successor to the Monsterverse epic. All eyes are turning towards Marvel’s Black Widow to make or break the box-office, and just this morning Marvel has released a teaser of their upcoming film slate that’s supposed to work as a little…incentive, to get people hyped up about their theatrical releases after a few months of Disney+ series’ (and streaming in general) dominating the conversation.

Marvel Eternals — The Eternals | comicbook.com

Granted, at least one of these movies will be available to purchase on Disney+ while it plays in theaters, and that happens to be Black Widow, so…we’ll see whether this ends up revitalizing the box-office like it’s supposed to, but either way this teaser gave me all the feels, and a first fleeting look at the upcoming film Eternals, my most-anticipated Marvel feature and the one best positioned to be a serious contender at next year’s Academy Awards race.

When I say fleeting, I’m not kidding – we only get a mere thirteen seconds to admire Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao’s stunning cinematography, and a range of what will presumably be outstanding performances from an all-star cast including Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Salma Hayek, and Angelina Jolie. But thirteen seconds is all it takes to sell me on the film’s premise, and Zhao’s stunning vision for her first MCU project, one to which she has committed herself with the same clear passion as her critically-acclaimed A24 drama, Nomadland.

Spanning time and space, Eternals follows a group of celestial beings (not to be confused with the literal Celestials, who created the Eternals) who have roamed the earth since prehistoric times, subtly guiding the forward flow of human civilization. Thirteen seconds isn’t much, but it allows us to see the Eternals in their ancient guise as godlike superheroes defending the city of Babylon outside the famous Gate of Ishtar (once considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World)…before showing them in their modern forms, revisiting the site of the Mesopotamian city as archaeologists.

We see a little bit of how they’ve each adapted to life coexisting alongside the human race; with some of them, like Salma Hayek’s Ajak, distancing themselves from civilization (Hayek appears to be riding on horseback through what could be the American Southwest or even the Pampas of Argentina), while others, like Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo, have become celebrities among the humans (I love that he’s brought his own personal camera crew along with him to meet the other Eternals). Angelina Jolie’s Thena is the only character we see fighting in the clip (and I could be wrong, but I think she’s only sparring with her fellow Eternal, Gilgamesh), but the choreography looks good and her golden sword is both beautiful and cool.

Perhaps my biggest fear was that the Eternals’ costumes wouldn’t look great in live-action, since up until now all we’ve really seen of them is some concept art…which, with all due respect to the artist, wasn’t quite as visually striking as some fans had been hoping. But this clip lets us see a few of the suits in action (not all, though, and not the ones that looked worst in the concept art), and they seem practical, well-made, and simply gorgeous – with Jolie’s Thena making a particularly strong impression, dressed from head to toe in white with gold accents. Her regal, even haughty, stride indicates that she’s not going to allow any opponent to get a speck of dirt or blood on her pristine outfit – and I respect that power move.

While the rest of the teaser does feature some new footage from Black Widow and Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, the two major talking points besides the never-before-seen Eternals footage were both title reveals – Black Panther 2 officially receiving the emotional subtitle Wakanda Forever (that movie is gonna make me cry: I just know it), and Captain Marvel 2 rather unusually being retitled and rebranded entirely as The Marvels.

I’m a bit conflicted on how I feel about the latter title: firstly, because when I got the notification on my phone about this announcement, I honestly thought The Marvels was going to be an MCU sitcom. Of course, the title is supposed to reference the film’s holy trinity of heroines – Brie Larson as Carol Danvers’ Captain Marvel, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau (who also goes by Captain Marvel in the comics), and Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel – but it’s a bit too much of a cheeky pun on the company’s name, and slightly undermines what I feel should be more of an epic and awe-inspiring moment. Some fans are upset that the Captain Marvel solo franchise is now dropping Captain Marvel’s name, and I get that – though I also understand and appreciate that the new title celebrates more inclusivity, and puts the three women on equal status, rather than elevating Carol above her costars.

The teaser is very focused on release dates, some of which we already knew, some of which are a bit of a surprise. Black Widow and Eternals are both set in stone and unlikely to shift around on the calendar – the former is comfortably anchored by a Disney+ simultaneous release, and the latter is being positioned for awards season. Shang-Chi will still release in September, between the two films, while Spider-Man: No Way Home will close out the year on a bang, by all accounts setting up a Multiverse saga that will escalate in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, arriving March 25th, 2022. Thor: Love And Thunder and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will be the big summer event-movies of that year, and The Marvels will premiere on November 11th.

So far, only Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 are confirmed for 2023 (the former in February, the latter in May) but Mahershala Ali’s Blade will likely end up there too, along with Fantastic Four – the electric-blue logo for which pops up again in the final moments of this teaser, as if to remind us that we never know the full extent of Marvel’s plans for the future. Remember, these are just the upcoming movies.

But how do you feel about the studio’s slate of films, and which is your most anticipated? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

September 20, 2019

“Eternals” Begins Filming: “Thena” Revealed!

We’ve all been waiting for a glimpse, however brief, at one of Marvel Studios’ most tantalizing and mysterious upcoming projects – Eternals, the story of a race of human/alien gods created by the Celestials to protect our earth from prehistoric threats. Today, we’ve been given a glimpse, but it raises more questions than answers.

Angelina Jolie, one of the stars of the film (the others being Gemma Chan, Kit Harington and Richard Madden) has been spotted in the United Kingdom, filming some very interesting and unusual scenes for the superhero movie. Jolie has been confirmed to be playing the immortal warrior Thena, but, well…she doesn’t appear to be playing the character here: or, if she is, then her outfit has been dramatically altered since we saw it in the D23 Expo concept art last month.

I won’t post all of the photos, since they might be considered spoilers by some; but the few that I’ll show certainly seem to imply that Jolie’s take on the war-goddess is definitely very different from how she’s appeared in the comics, dressed in Greek-inspired armor.

"Eternals" Begins Filming: "Thena" Revealed! 1 — Twitter | @eternalsupdates

The first image shows Jolie, sporting the character’s white-blond hair, in what looks at first glance to be a Greek gown of some sort, wading through water, holding some sort of little black pot. The general consensus among internet theorists is that she’s scattering ashes, for whatever reason.

But the next photo made me start wondering…

"Eternals" Begins Filming: "Thena" Revealed! 2 — Twitter | @eternalsupdates

Because I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a depiction of ancient Greek women wearing such modern footwear. And that inspired me to start looking more closely at the rest of the outfit: those long sleeves certainly seem out of place in the ancient world, for instance…and then I found this image.

"Eternals" Begins Filming: "Thena" Revealed! 3 — Twitter | @eternalsupdates

Ignore the modern coat that Jolie is wearing over her outfit to keep warm, and look at the front of the dress: it’s very clearly a modern or 20th Century button-up dress, rather vintage-inspired by the looks of it. In fact, it gives off some serious Indiana Jones vibes, to the point where I almost began wondering whether Jolie was playing some sort of similar adventurer, or…archaeologist.

Oh, wait. Remember all those rumors from months ago that a “female archaeologist” was the lead of Eternals? But everyone dismissed them because Jolie was confirmed to play Thena, and nobody else seemed to fit the description of the character. That female archaeologist, after all, was said to be Margo Damian, from the original Eternals comics published back in the 70’s, a character who wore her hair in that decade’s trendiest styles (because archaeologists are paragons of fashion: everybody knows that), and dressed like a female Indiana Jones.

And now we have Angelina Jolie, the lead of the film, doing the same.

But Jolie is playing Thena, right? How can she also be playing Margo Damian? Well, there isn’t any precedent for this in the comics, but it is an established part of recent Eternals lore that the Eternals’s minds were once wiped by the trickster Sprite (who will also show up in this movie), and the gods were forced to live as humans, suffering from amnesia and fragmented memories until they remembered who they were. In the original comics, it turned out that Damian’s partner and love interest, Ike, was in fact the Eternal Ikaris (shocker, I know). We don’t know for sure what’s happening here, but Marvel might be updating the story and having Margo be the one to discover that she’s the long-lost embodiment of an ancient goddess – since, in the comics, she sort of just…died. This would also help to explain why the Eternals didn’t show up in Avengers: Endgame to help in the fight against Thanos – because they don’t remember their powers yet.

So what do you think? Is Jolie playing Thena or Margo Damian in this scene? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

July 24, 2019

“Eternals” Filming Begins?

With Marvel’s Eternals now officially confirmed for a November 2020 release date, and assembling an impressive all-star cast, it seems only a matter of time before cameras actually begin rolling and we start seeing behind-the-scenes photos, footage, etc. There was even some hinting at San Diego Comic-Con over the weekend that filming had already begun, a little earlier than anticipated. Now, we might – possibly – have a clearer idea of what’s going to happen in the film, and which characters might have yet to be cast.

According to one source, sets are currently being built for the Eternals film over at Pinewood Studios in England, where production is slated to begin in September. The set, which appears to be a large pyramidal temple with ornately-carved statues, was initially believed to be intended for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker reshoots set on the iconic Yavin IV planet from the original trilogy, but closer examination shows that the site, and especially the statues are probably intended to look Aztec in origin, rather than…Yavini? Yavinese? Yavinish? I don’t know. I mean, ignoring the basic fact that any Aztec site built in England is going to look very different from a Mesoamerican jungle until CGI and fake tropical plants are used, the set does look like an Aztec temple.

"Eternals" Filming Begins? 4 — wegotthiscovered.com
Instagram | @bespinbulletin

Why, though, would an Aztec temple be built for Eternals? Well, there’s one very good reason I can think of: the entire Eternals comic book history begins in one such temple, all the way back in 1976. In Jack Kirby’s The Eternals #1, archaeologists Daniel Damian and Margo Damian traveled to Central America to uncover ancient Aztec ruins, only to discover that they had actually stumbled upon the Tomb of the Space Gods. Naturally, the Tomb was opened, a whole bunch of extremely weird stuff happened, and eventually Margo Damian was turned into a Deviant and killed, because that’s what tended to happen to female characters in old comic books. I highly doubt that a modern adaptation of the story would allow Margo to die off so quickly, but it does seem that she (or, at least, a fully fleshed-out character loosely-based on the cardboard cutout that previously held the name) will appear in the upcoming Eternals film: though she wasn’t one of the characters revealed at San Diego Comic-Con, there are still reports going around that the film’s lead will be a human female archaeologist with the codename of “Karen”. These new images, possibly unveiling a first look at the Tomb, give credence to this theory.

And just because we got a whole bunch of casting announcements at Comic-Con doesn’t mean there’s not many more to come. If Disney is to be believed, what we’ve seen already is just the tip of the iceberg: the D23 event next month will apparently give us even more food for thought, including confirmation of several more Marvel films, more casting, and possibly some early footage from Black Widow (though we’re also getting a first look at Black Widow on the Avengers: Endgame Blu-Ray release at the end of this month, so stay tuned for that!). It wouldn’t be shocking if more people joined the Eternals ensemble cast at D23, considering that there are a whole bunch of roles which might still need to be filled – including Sersi, the Damians, Elysius, Zuras, Druig, Eros and maybe Hercules. Some of these roles might have been written out of the script since they were initially reported early this year, but these new set images indicate that the Damians, at least, are still in for the time being.

July 21, 2019

“Eternals” Cast!

If there was one Marvel project that we knew virtually nothing about going into San Diego Comic Con, it was Eternals – Chloe Zhao’s upcoming movie about immortal alien gods trying to protect the earth from other alien gods called Deviants. This was all partially due to the fact that nobody really knew anything about the Eternals comics (not surprising, considering they haven’t been in print for quite some time), and because there were a whole bunch of rumors about the film that ended up becoming huge headlines from various media outlets, headlines which eventually turned out to be untrue (or, at least, haven’t been confirmed yet).

One such rumor, for instance, was that Marvel’s first openly gay character would be one of three male stars in the film, and would most likely be the Greek God Hercules. Well, last night, four of the male stars of Eternals came onstage – and not one of them was playing Hercules. There’s still a lot of speculation, though, because…well, there’s a lot of chaos going on. First of all, Richard Madden was confirmed to be playing one of the main Eternals, Ikaris – we kind of knew or guessed that already. But the trades have all been reporting that Ikaris was going to be most definitely straight, and in a romantic relationship with the character of Sersi, believed to be played by Angelina Jolie. Last night, though, not only was it revealed that Angelina Jolie is playing a completely different character named Thena – it was also notable that nobody was confirmed to play Sersi. As of this writing, there is no Sersi in Eternals: arguably the only character from this film that even comic-book readers might have a chance at recognizing – isn’t there. So, yeah, in her absence, it’s entirely possible that Ikaris is the film’s gay character – and there’s been lots of (still unconfirmed) speculation that Richard Madden himself is gay, so who knows?

Obviously, the big news was that Jolie would not be playing Sersi, the enchantress and fun-loving witch: personally, that makes me very happy, because the character of Sersi absolutely 100% needs to be played by comedian Jameela Jamil. Oh yeah, and while Jolie takes on the role of the warrior Thena, the actress previously reported for that role, Salma Hayek, will actually be playing Ajak, the leader of the Eternals. But there were many other surprises:

Makkari, the super-speedy Eternal based on the Roman god Mercury, will not be played by Pakistani comedian Kumail Nanjiani – instead, she will be portrayed by Lauren Ridloff, becoming the first deaf superhero in the MCU. The addition of Ridloff to the cast is a welcome surprise. Meanwhile, Nanjiani will be playing master swordsman Kingo, a character I’ve never even heard of before.

Millie Bobby Brown, long speculated to have a starring role in this movie – is not in this movie. The role she was supposedly eyeing, that of the teenage character Sprite or Piper, is instead going to child actress Lia McHugh. So we can finally let the Stranger Things actress take a break from reporters constantly pestering her about when she’s joining Marvel.

Brian Tyree Henry will take on the role of genius weapons-maker and inventor Phastos, in a surprise announcement. There was talk of Phastos being in the movie, but no indication that he would be a star. And, lastly, Asian star Don Lee will be the indomitable god Gilgamesh – a character so powerful that Lee even challenged Marvel’s Hulk, Mark Ruffalo, to a challenge.

Possibly the biggest shock is that this is the full cast: previous reports had stated that there would be no less than five female leads and three male leads – currently, we have four female and four male, perfectly balanced, as all things should be. But this is certainly a downsized version of the cast initially reported early this year, which included characters like Druig, Sersi, a “female archaeologist”, Hercules, Elysius, and Zuras. Whether they’ll be in the film, or simply remain to be cast, is still unknown. But one thing is for certain: despite the fact that a lot was cleared up at last night’s Eternals panel – it’s still just as confusing!