Eternals Screenwriters Had Planned One Of Those Post-Credits Cameos From The Beginning [Exclusive]
The two big "Eternals" credits scene cameos might have surprised fans, but they weren't all that shocking to screenwriters Ryan Firpo and Kaz Firpo, who had planned on including at least one of them since the very beginning. In an interview with /Film's Jacob Hall (full interview coming later), the screenwriting duo shared the history behind those mid-and-post credits sequences, and revealed that they came up with nearly a "half dozen" possible credits sequences before narrowing them down to the final two.
The Loki Series Blew the Door Open for Cameo Possibilities
In "Eternals," in theaters now, there are two major cameos during and after the credits. The first features Pip (voiced by Patton Oswalt) and Starfox (Harry Styles), while the second teases the future of vampire-hunting daywalker Blade in the MCU by having Mahershala Ali speak a line from off-screen as the character. Though some fans were disappointed that it had nothing to do with ice-skating uphill, the very first cameo by Blade in the MCU is a huge deal. Kaz Firpo revealed that while Starfox — AKA Eros, the brother of Thanos — was planned from the get-go, Blade came as a surprise even to the screenwriters:
We wrote about a half a dozen, maybe more, honestly, endings, like codas. That's one of those processes that they're iterating constantly. So we tried. The Eros was a character we always knew. Starfox would even show up. It just was the perfect, I'd say, again, another logical conclusion for somebody to kind of break the whole mold wide open, introduce a really fun new element.
So that was something that, from the beginning, I think it was even in the script in some drafts, just that ending moment. And Dane, and particularly Blade, I think that's something that they discovered along the way. There's some other really exciting, really, really big ones. And I think the decision once "Loki" came out and kind of did what it did, and sort of, it created a lot of doors that were left open. And so Blade was something that came, I think, quite late in the process that just, we're really stoked for as fans.
Blade's official arrival in the MCU means that his movie could be coming sooner instead of later, to the delight of fans everywhere. It's a shame that "Morbius" is over at Sony, or we could hope to see him show up and give Jared Leto's vampire baddie a much-needed stake sandwich.
"Eternals" is in theaters now.