It’s learned that Kevin Feige canceled plans for a Marvel Eternals TV series when the film and television divisions merged, which saw Feige become in charge of Marvel.
Back in 2015, Marvel TV, which was a separate studio from Feige’s Marvel Studios – and the two didn’t get along – was developing an Eternals series with John Ridley for ABC.
It’s been known for a while that Ridley had been developing something at Marvel, always described as “secret,” and now it’s known to have been Eternals.
“The Eternals… But good”
Ridley opened up about his secret Marvel project on the Comic Book Club podcast.
“It’s not in the works anymore,” Ridley confirmed. “It was a television version of The Eternals… But good.”
So what ended up happening is that when Feige took over, he canceled all the projects under Marvel TV and instead of the TV series, decided to do the Eternals movie, which was a massive bomb. At the time, Marvel TV, which included Jeph Loeb, was also developing shows like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter on ABC, and Netflix’s Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Punisher, and Defenders. Deadline notes in their report the John Ridley Eternals series was scrapped when the television arm of Marvel Entertainment was incorporated into the Marvel Studios group.
“My version was the good version,” Ridley added again referencing the failed movie. “It was so f***ing 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.”
“Hard property to develop”
Ridley also talked about the pilot episode.
“My version started with, the first thing you see is a young man, probably about 18 years old,” he explained. “And he’s sitting there. He’s sitting there for a moment. 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. That’s the start, right? That’s how it starts. And then I think you see… another kid… He sleeps in the bathtub, covers himself with foil. It’s just a really weird story about these people who are, I mean, it’s just weird.”
Ridley did say his take on the Eternals came with mixed reviews, offering that it was a “really hard property to develop.”
“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 admitted. “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.”
