These Are The Eternals Characters Cut From Early Drafts The Screenwriters Hope Appear In Future Movies [Exclusive]
That "Eternals" movie sure had a lot of characters! But what if there were even more?
Marvel's latest release, a wildly ambitious space epic that's guilty of overextending itself, has a whopping 10 characters leading the story, all superpowered beings sent to defend Earth from other superpowered beings. The massive ensemble cast is full of stars, including the comedic force of Kumail Nanjiani, a flying Richard Madden who's ripe for Superman comparisons and Angelina Jolie, wielding cosmic-made weapons. They're joined by the likes of Gemma Chan, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Don Lee, and Salma Hayek. While it seems like an awful lot, when you reflect on the jam-packed cast of "Avengers: Infinity War" or "Avengers: Endgame," it almost doesn't sound so bad!
The MCU is expanding faster than ever — introducing new faces left and right, who jump between the various films and many series still arriving to Disney+. Still, no matter how rapidly they churn out new titles, running out of characters would be impossible. The massive library of Marvel comics are home to more than 8,000 main characters. And why stop there? The MCU has had great success with minor characters too — Karun (Harish Patel) has no comic equivalent and isn't crucial to the films plot, but he steals the show in "Eternals." Though "Hawkeye" hasn't even premiered, Lucky the Pizza Dog is already the bestest boy— I mean, character in the show. So adding one-off and side characters to the mix means that the MCU has over 50,000 characters to choose from.
Among those thousands of characters, the comics contain a hundred Earth-bound Eternals, so it's no wonder screenwriters Kaz Firpo and Ryan Firpo had trouble narrowing it down to just 10. In an interview with /Film's Jacob Hall, the writers revealed two of their toughest cuts from early drafts of the movie.
Which Characters Were Cut From Eternals?
Early in the drafting process, the team of 10 Eternals was even bigger, adding up to 12 main characters. Kaz Firpo told /Film:
"We were begging at one point, can we have less? Can we have less characters please? Because I think even 10 is a handful and a half."
In the end, they managed to trim the team down by two, and assured "we love the 10 characters that made it into the film." Though they were pleased with the team's final count, they found ways to work in the characters who were lost, by blending their stories and characteristics into existing Eternals. Ryan Firpo went into specifics, saying:
"Valkin and Zuras were the characters who were in the very first draft when it was 12. And so they were cut because there were just too many people basically, but their characteristics got kind of folded into the other Eternals. So a lot of Zuras' sort of surly, his kind of closeted gentleness hidden between the surly old man that kind of got folded into Gilgamesh. And then Valkin's power to heal got folded into Ajak. And a lot of his perspectives were distributed to the other characters."
Valkin, much like his fellow "Eternals," is a beyond powerful addition to the team, Like Ikaris, the comic book character can fly, but he can also teleport. That isn't even his most famous asset though — Valkin was heralded for his strength. He even faced off against Thor in one comic run, and held his own against the Asgardian. As for Zuras, he was the original leader of the Eternals and the one to establish their telepathic link, the Uni-Mind. Ultimately, there was no space for these two in the final film, but that doesn't mean we won't see them later down the road. Ryan Firpo added:
"There definitely are characters that we entertained in the early, early pitch phases that didn't end up making it into any version of the treatment that I would love to see in future stories. Future Eternal stories, because it's just, this is just 10, but there's really over 100 Eternals that have been in the comics. And so there's a huge pool to choose from. And there's a lot of really, really fun, interesting characters that we hope to see come to life down the road."
Marvel's "Eternals" is now playing in theaters.