An “Eternals” TV show was originally in the works before the movie was made.
John Ridley was hired in 2015 to develop a mystery Marvel project for ABC, but the show never came to fruition. The 12 Years a Slave screenwriter has now confirmed he was developing a series based on the immortal alien beings. He believes it would have been better than Chloe Zhao’s 2021 movie, which starred the likes of Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden and Gemma Chan.
“It’s not in the works anymore. It was a television version of “The Eternals” … But good. My version was the good version. It was so weird. 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,” Ridley said on the “Comic Book Club” podcast.
But the screenwriter noted the “Eternals” comics are “[a] really hard property to develop” and he understands why the show never progressed, particularly because he’s aware his ideas aren’t as “populist” as Marvel may have wanted.
“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,” Ridley said. “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.”
The screenwriter explained how he envisioned a “really weird” story for the show.
“My version started with … the first thing you see is a young man, probably about 18 years old. And he’s sitting there 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,” he explained.
“That’s the start, right? That’s how it starts. And then I think you see another kid … he sleeps in the bathtub, and covers himself with foil. It’s just a really weird story about these people who are, I mean, it’s just weird,” he added.
