Look at this dynamic duo over here.
Welcome!
Kevin Feige, Chloe Zhao, come on over!
Hello, hello!
Now it's a party here.
Here we go.
Were you guys riffing a little bit,
waiting for Chloe to get up here?
[LAUGHS]
- A little bit? - I mean--
We're always waiting for the boss.
Come on.
We know how it goes, we know how it goes.
You got the hat on.
Look, look.
- You've got the hat. - He does.
He does have his special hat. - Nice hat.
Of course I do.
So I want to start at the very beginning.
So, Kevin, you know we're talking live to the fans.
Chloe, we're actually live-streaming to the fans
right now. - Live
Live.
So go back to the beginning.
Kevin, you've said that when Chloe
came in and did her pitch for this film,
you connected with it.
That was really what won you over.
So can you talk a little bit about that?
And it was even before that.
Our producer Nate Moore, who you might
have already spoken to today, really had a belief in this.
And we'd always wanted to do something
that spanned millennia and focused
on these immortal characters.
It was Nate that was like, these Eternals,
there's something here.
And I said, all right, well, let's see what
it is, start working on it.
And it was when Nate brought Chloe in
to say, here's what it could be, that I was like,
well, Nate was right.
And Chloe has a remarkable vision
for it, which I'm so excited that people
finally get to see today.
So exciting.
And, Chloe, for you, you've said before, you're
a fan of the MCU and the genre.
But what was it specifically about telling the story
of the Eternals that really spoke to you, and you said,
this is the project I want to do?
Well, when I first went to pitch the movie,
the first thing I showed him was a macro picture of sand.
And then I saw citing a William Blake poem to him.
True.
And yeah, I'm still with it.
I'm still with it.
But what he was trying to say in that poem
is that you can find endless beauty in the cosmos,
in the smallest things on Earth.
And we were excited to capture that scale.
And so that-- when I read the treatment, I go,
this story allows us to go that epic and that intimate.
And one of the things that allowed you
to do that, of course, is your filming style, which is using
a lot of practical locations, which I understands
is a bit of something new to this scale and scope.
I didn't know you were allowed to do that anymore, honestly.
I didn't know you could go out and shoot real places.
Aw.
It's amazing.
Chloe said, no, you can.
It's OK.
There was no, like, even discussing it.
As soon as we pitched the movie, when we pitched it,
it was both what and how.
And when I was explaining how, we have to believe
these immortal heroes have lived this planet for 7,000 years,
so within the frame, you want to see them and the world
around them.
So from the very beginning, they were
excited, Marvel, that we're going to go on location.
Mhm.
Yeah, well, can you guys talk to us about how do
you find the inspiration for--
I mean, the Domo, for example.
It's 7,000-plus years old.
And the Domo is the spaceship that the Eternals travel in.
But the costume designs, I mean, these things are old,
but we've never seen them before.
And they also look so advanced.
Where does the inspiration for that come?
Well, all of the inspiration for all this
starts with Jack Kirby, obviously,
and as our fans know more that anyone,
that the genius of Jack Kirby drawing, writing,
coming up with all of the incredible Marvel things,
but particularly this that that's where it all started.
And there are some things in this movie--
have you talked about that yet, the mural
in the back of the temple? Not yet.
Not yet, but--
It's a scoop, just for you. [LAUGHS]
We show a little bit.
Yeah, there's some things that are directly,
and then most things are inspired.
Yes.
And we asked ourselves from the very beginning, that
would affect costume design, production design, everything,
is that why are they here?
Is it military?
Is it missionary?
You know, because everything is going to look different
if it's military or missionary.
So we realized that they were missionaries
from the Celestials.
You know, Celestials, they are Gods.
So everything does have that kind of holy undertone.
And we also look at sacred symbols
throughout human history, backtracking and thinking
maybe because of who they were, they
inspired these shapes, and these symbols, and designing into it.
And also with the Domo, one thing for us
was that was the most advanced technology in the universe?
It's not to think about wires, and computers, and--
no, it has to go back to all the way to what nature looks like.
Hmm.
Seamless.
I'm going to start going crazy over Fibonacci
spirals in a minute here.
Question about sci-fi, actually, for both of you.
The best-- because this is a wonderful sci-fi film that's
very much grounded in reality.
The best sci-fi allows us to look to the future,
and yet take from it and really look at what's happening
here in our lives now.
And I feel very much the Eternals falls into that.
Can you talk about the themes that you
wanted people to connect--
That's what Chloe's pitch was, really,
was focus on exactly that, that, yes, talking about the sand--
that you sent me that picture again recently
and I hadn't seen it since your pitch.
Ancient aliens, we've talked about,
and those fun theories in that show
that we go down the rabbit hole on, whatever channel that is.
And, really, the history of humanity, and how
we got to where we are today.
The good ways, bad ways, what made us who we are today,
and where did Jack Kirby's Eternals fit into that.
And we really-- this was developed
in the shadow of Endgame, and with the expectation
that we wanted to go out after Endgame and try something new.
And that is another reason Chloe's pitch
hit me so hard is because here we were
finishing the Infinity saga.
And I was thinking, where do we go from here?
How do we continue?
Where do we grow?
And Chloe came in and told us.
And that's what this movie is.
And also, I think superhero genres,
for me, it's very similar to westerns back in the days.
We used to explore the horizon, always
wonder what's beyond the horizon,
therefore, that genre was born.
Now we pretty much explored everywhere.
We're asking, what about there?
What's our relationship with technology?
You know, so in Marvel, in all of the films they've done,
Tony's questioned that.
You know, everybody is curious and that
kind of complicated feeling we have with our future.
So I think the rise of this genre
is a very similar thing as westerns back in the day.
And, Chloe, you always have such an amazing way
of taking big concepts and making
them really close to the heart.
It's a beautiful film, so congratulations.
Such a great work.
And we're going to send you off on the way
to enjoy this amazing night.
Thank you. - Thank you very much.
Thank you, Kevin. Thank you, Chloe.
Thank you both so much.