Marvel News & Notes

We have a confirmed screener leak for The Eternals, something that's extremely rare for the MCU (the confirmed part, I mean). Despite the verification, keep in mind there's a chance that this is wrong. We don't know when this person saw the screening, although it's probably recently. We also know that Marvel sometimes insert fake scenes to throw people off (particularly with post-credits). With that said, I believe this is broadly credible. Here it is in all its glory (spoiler warning, of course):

• There is a lot of jumping around in time to give context to various plot points - I don't recall all of the linear order so will just include the info as part of the synopsis
• Opening title card explaining the Deviants and Eternals - the Deviants were created by the Celestials to hunt predators that prey on intelligent life on newly evolving worlds, but then they started to hunt the [intelligent] life as well, so Celestials created the Eternals to kill the Deviants.
• Opens 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia a man is fishing on some rocks with his son (?) and is attacked by a Deviant from the ocean. The Eternals show up and a short battle commences, after which they line up in a triangular "hero" pose and this rolls into the Marvel logo opening.
• Jumps to present day - Sersi and Dane Whitman are teachers in the UK and dating. During a class lesson, a large earthquake strikes, and Sersi saves a child from a falling object by turning it to sand. Later while out on a date, a Deviant attacks Sersi, Sprite, and Dane; during the battle Ikaris shows up and they fight it off after noting that they thought all the Deviants were destroyed and unlike others, the Deviant was able to heal its wounds.
• The group decide to visit Ajak as she was the leader of the group. After arriving at the midwest ranch where she is now living, they discover her dead body, A small golden device leaves Ajak's body and enters Sersi (this is how she communicated with the Celestials) - they then decide to round up the rest of the Eternals to deal with the Deviants.
• Thena and Gilgamesh are in Australia (I think) due to an issue with her memory causing her to randomly attack the other Eternals. Gilgamesh is obviously in love with Thena but it is not played as a romantic relationship.
• Phastos and his husband live with their child and he decides to help due to the fact that he has fully embraced the human race and wants to protect his family.
• Makkari has been living in the Eternals ship all this time (I guess, since there is a bunch of food containers and mess strewn about).
• Kingo is a Bollywood actor (there is a short dance routine that introduces this) and comes with the group along with his valet (don't recall the name) who tries to document everything on video.
• Druig is living in some rainforest controlling a small village of people after losing faith in humanity and wanting to control them to stop war, famine, etc. Gilgamesh is killed fighting the Deviants in the forest.
• Sersi learns that the Celestials created both races and that the Eternals are basically just very advanced robots. They seed young planets with a Celestial "egg" that takes eons to mature. The evolving intelligent life on these planets feeds the Celestial's growth, so the Eternals are sent to protect the evolving life forms and kill the Deviants. After the emergence, the Eternals are "rebooted" and sent to another world (this is the cause of Thena's memory issue, as she knows that the planet is doomed) - this cycle has gone on for millions of years. Earth was seeded and Tiamut is about to emerge (this was the cause of the earthquake earlier). Once awakened, the entire planet and all life will be destroyed.
• They debate on what to do and some decide to try and find a way to stop the emergence. Ikaris disagrees, Sprite and Kingo are on his side but Kingo agrees to help.
• Phastos designs a device (Uni-Mind) that will allow Druig to channel all the Eternals energies in the hope of controlling Tiamut and putting him back to sleep.
• Sersi learns that Ikaris knew about the Celestials actual plans and this is why he left the group hundreds of years ago. He killed Ajak because she had decided to help stop the emergence and save Earth.
• The group go to where Tiamut is and attempt to use the device - Ikaris and Sprite attempt to stop them. Sersi then uses the device to amplify her power and turn Tiamut to marble just as his hand and part of his head is emerging from the Indian Ocean.
• Ikaris flies off into space (towards the sun - unclear if he just left or flew into the sun and killed himself), then Sersi makes Sprite a real human with what remains of her power.
• A few days (?) later Thena, Makkari, and Druig leave in the ship to seek out other Eternals and try and stop the cycle of destruction. Sersi, Kingo, and Phastos stay on Earth but are then pulled into space by Arishem and vanish.
• The two end credit stingers: 1) Dane is looking at an old box and pulls out a sword that is wrapped up. Just as he is about to touch it, an off screen voice stops him. 2) On the Eternals' ship, Pip the Troll appears and introduces Starfox.

Before we get into the details, my prediction when this came out is that none of the notable people who cover Marvel would talk about it (similar to the complete radio silence on the Gemma Chan leak from February). Thus far the only notable exception to this is the aforementioned Walsh, who said the leak matches what he's been told by someone who worked on the film. Beyond that there's been nothing from Charles Murphy, Daniel, The Illuminerdi, The Direct, CBR, etc--even Youtubers as different as Emergency Awesome and Andy Signore have ignored it. The "why" answer to this silence is the same as it was with the Gemma Chan story: access and friendly relations. While discussing it has a short-term benefit, for those who want to maintain or gain Marvel access, it's better to remain silent.

That aside, while there are familiar elements here, it's not at all what I would have expected from the various supposed scoops we've seen about the IP. Broadly, of course, the storyline matches: the Eternals oppose the Deviants and later must oppose the Celestials to save earth. One thing that's not conclusive is the shifted perspective suggested by Walsh's report (it's particularly hard to understand the Ikaris angle if he's correct, although an increased focus doesn't necessarily mean he can't also be an antagonist). His claim about "other characters are introduced" could be seen as the introduction of Starfox and Pip (assuming they weren't planned for from the beginning). Incidentally, back in September former Variety writer Kris Tapley said Harry Styles would be in an upcoming Marvel film (in a Tweet he promptly deleted)--six months later 4chan claimed this would be as Starfox (grains of salt required, of course).

One of the things this leak resolves is how the film can handle so many characters: by killing some of the off. Ajak and Gilgamesh seem like cameos--ala Slipknot in Suicide Squad. It also looks like Makkari is an ephemeral character.

In terms of surprises, while Sprite as a villainous character is expected, Ikaris is not. It's also a surprise that Dane does not take on the Black Knight identity in the film, as we had reports from Daniel of him in a partially completed outfit (cf). If those reports are true either a decision was made to cut Black Knight from the film (considering it busy enough), or the screener is wrong--given that Daniel's report is from a year ago, I'm leaning towards the screener on this one. The only other notable set leak we had was this image, showing a long, steep stair which various scoopers believed was for the Tomb of the Space Gods--that's certainly one interpretation, but it could just as easily be something else (the stairs of a ziggurat in Mesopotamia, for example)--regardless, that item has no real impact on the veracity of the leak.

The shifted focus of the Celestials matches what we saw with Ego in Guardians 2, which is a less interesting angle than the usual judgement role (in essence, it turns the Celestials into generic monsters). This approach is apparently from the Marvel Earth-X series, but having a comicbook basis doesn't make it anymore interesting. It also seems like the Deviants are simply villainous monsters to dispense with--this makes sense if the tension of the film is a Civil War-like split between the Eternals themselves (which also provides more space for the large cast to be developed). We had a supposed toy leak that included Kro back in the fall, but the toy doesn't say anything about what kind of role he has (if he has any)--there's certainly no sign of his relationship with Thena.

A curious element is the purpose of splitting the Eternals into two separate groups. By introducing Starfox to the Thena-Makkari-Druig group (who are seeking other Eternals), it suggests this is the significant trio for the IP--I'd guess they will ultimately search for Ikaris. This leaves no obvious purpose for the Sersi-Kingo-Phastos trio (which would fit Walsh's claim). It's also interesting that, at least in terms of proximity, Sersi's relationship with Dane is severed at the end of the film.

I'm curious to see what Marvel does now that this is out--right now I think the effort is to let it fade away (given the minimal coverage that seems likely). I don't expect a trailer for the film any time soon, since both Black Widow and Shang-Chi come out beforehand. As for how this impacts my level of interest in the film, which was low to begin with: nothing has changed. Conceptually the film, at least as we know it, doesn't interest me, so the writing/performances will have to win the day.

Nebens (ergo Daniel, ergo Production Weekly) reports that actress Olga Kurylenko has a minor role in Black Widow. This seems much ado about nothing, as it's unlikely to be a role that continues forward after the movie, but it's another piece of information about the film.

Deadline (Dino-Ray Ramos) says Dallas Liu (who is 19) will appear in Shang-Chi (he doesn't guess the role). From Daniel's old casting scoop it seems likely that he is the 'Younger brother' (of who isn't clear) given his age (all we know about the character is that he needs to be Chinese-American, which Liu is).

A new Sutton Q&A:

• Repeated that Owl will be in a Disney+ Daredevil show
• Also repeated (although I hadn't written it down previously because it seems trivial) that we'll see Daredevil's yellow costume and his sonar visualized
• No Gabriel Luna in Doctor Strange 2 as the Robbie Reyes' version of Ghost Rider (instead it will be the Johnny Blaze version) [The former is a change from what he said in July when Luna would reprise his role; he's been consistent about Blaze, although having him in Doctor Strange 2 is (I think) new--in August he said he'd have a cameo in Blade]
• Ghost Rider will first appear in Blade [How this meshes with the above I don't know, albeit live discussions can lead to things being said unclearly]
• Midnight Sons will be built-up to like the Avengers [In August he said it would be lead into by Blade 2]
• Luke Cage will have a friendship with Patriot (that's the Young Avenger character, Isaiah Bradley's grandson) and will get the super serum [This echoes his recent article about Falcon planting the seeds for Luke Cage]
• Wave will be introduced in Shang-Chi at some point [Something he's said previously]

The most intriguing thing is Cage--does he receive the serum in Falcon and the Winter Soldier? That seems highly unlikely, as I don't think Marvel could keep an appearance by Mike Colter under wraps (Mikey believes Colter will return for the role). It's more likely that the Power Broker or someone else winds up spreading the serum. I have no interest in Patriot or the Young Avengers, but a rebooted Cage could be interesting.

A recent Midnight's Edge video provides me the opportunity to explore confirmation bias as they included Marvel in this content. For those unfamiliar with the term, confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs and values. This tendency saturates the Marvel space, but not to the explosive levels of Star Wars fandom. This specific example makes the following argument:

1. WandaVision's ratings decline can be tied to the firing of Gina Carano based on data shown below
2. This decline continued with Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as evidenced by the Snyder Cut beating it in streaming numbers (the former, its claimed, being below internal projections)
3. Falcon is well below WandaVision on Google Trends [Something I've verified]
4. If the downward trend is correct, it appears to have been accelerated by Carano's firing
5. Popular sentiment runs against Carano's firing [The evidence provided are YT downvotes and comments on the official Star Wars YT channel--a tenuous basis]
6. Internally, Marvel is pointing the finger at Star Wars for declining numbers [This would be via claimed inside sources]
7. YT's experiment with hiding dislike numbers is suspicious because of its timing; they relate it to the down voting of Kathleen Kennedy's Oscar video, saying they believe this change comes from Disney, relating it to a similar change from Rotten Tomatoes leading up to Captain Marvel's release (cf) [I go over ME's failed speculation about Captain Marvel here, a failure neither they nor other outrage YTers have handled very well (believing the box office was artificially inflated)]

While ME references inside sources (keeping in mind Andre covered something from We Got This Covered without ever looking into it), in terms of evidence provided it all seems to come from Pirates and Princesses, which admits a bias in how it addresses data (eg)--that honesty, at least, is refreshing. The numbers cited by P&P that aren't from Google Trends are via Deadline via Samba TV (which in the sample used tracked terrestrial smart TV's in the US--a rather narrow band both geographically and technically). Typically when you want streaming numbers you go to Parrot Analytics (which measures social media traffic related to shows) or Nielsen (which provides actual viewing hours), although I believe the latter doesn't yet cover HBO Max. In doing the research, PA seemed to match the Trends notion within the US to some extent (without including the Snyder Cut in the sample), but then Forbes put out the latest numbers confirming that (at least for PA) the first Falcon episode ranked higher than WandaVision worldwide. There are no Nielsen numbers for the show yet (the most recent update I could find was the end of February), although Reelgood (via IndieWire) claims WandaVision beat both the Snyder Cut and Wonder Woman 1984, with Falcon coming in fourth (numbers based on the two million people using their app). The severe restriction of focusing on US numbers is apparent and ought not be used for conclusive statements. I mentioned in my previous post that the reception of the second episode of Falcon was down via Google Trends, as were the usual YT video coverage, and part of that is surely due to the lack of WandaVision mystery boxes (cf). With that said, PA certainly implies there's nuance to that.

We can agree that, as far as social media and search engines can tell us, Falcon and the Winter Soldier has generated less interest than WandaVision. However, WandaVision's own trends do not show a steady decline--including the worldwide numbers it actually peaked in its final episode. Given that, the premise of the ME argument is false. We also have the bizarre comparison of a theatrical film with years hype (the Snyder Cut) to a Disney+ show--I'd call that apples to oranges--the only notable thing would be if the former lost to Falcon. After that we get into a bizarre bunny trail of if X, then Y, except that no direct evidence for X (Carano's firing being a cause) is established. Do I think ME is aware of the weakness of their case here? Probably not--for them the indirect evidence, tenuous as it is, is enough. It's also, more cynically, good economics--their fans want to believe it. I've said this many times before, but Andre would be better off not covering Marvel--he doesn't care and his coverage reflects that.

I will add one thing about streaming numbers: they are difficult to get hold of and the streaming sites have every reason to lie. Netflix, in order to pump the tires of The Witcher, changed how it assesses views--this doesn't mean the show wasn't popular (it was), but that they exaggerated just how popular. There's a flipside to this as well, as Netflix (again) deflated numbers of at least three of its Marvel shows to help justify cancelling them (putting out fake numbers to Business Insider before these were corrected about a month later, cf). The advent of Nielsen tracking hours watched for most of these sites helps, but their numbers tend to come out long after this sort of number manipulation has occurred.

I've been predicting Ava DuVernay's New Gods was never going to happen for a long time (cf)--no meaningful progress was ever made on the IP and she kept taking on other projects that were scheduled beforehand (up to four at last count). THR (Couch/Kit) have put out a story announcing the end of her attachment to New Gods and this is the right move by WB. DuVernay might be a great filmmaker, but her inability to make something as simple as A Wrinkle in Time work for Disney (it actually lost money) is an illustration of why Feige passed on her at Marvel. This means there will be an opportunity for another director to make it down the line. I've seen people try to connect these changes to the Snyder Cut, but I think the desire to move away from DuVernay began when Wrinkle bombed--I suspect people at WB wanted her to step aside on her own, but when it became clear that that was never going to happen, the focus on the Snyder Cut made it easier to cut her (especially on April 1st)--fan and press focus was elsewhere.

As a side note, I never took James Wan's Trench film very seriously--I've always thought the box office for Aquaman was soft (by which I mean I don't think it generated significant interest in the IP--to me it's the most profitable B-movie of all time) and not able to support something as bizarre as a Trench-based film.

Also DC-related: understandably the fans who successfully got the Snyder Cut are now pushing for the Ayer Cut--something which, on a financial and mechanical level, would be much simpler for WB to do since that film is essentially done. The reason I think this is unlikely--at least in the short term--is WB won't want that version of the Suicide Squad detracting from the James Gunn iteration that drops this August. The last thing WB needs is for fans to like the Ayer Cut and its dark tone because of how that will contrast with Gunn's bombastic approach--given that, I think it's something a long way off.

A personal note: I was invited to appear on Edward Lauder's (Small Screen) YT channel this week. I enjoyed the conversation (although my mic sounds awful through Streamyards) and it's an interesting kind of content to be involved with. I came to their attention via my own YT efforts (they were oblivious to the blog's existence), which I've had rebranded to make it look a prettier (here).

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)