Marvel has taken some great strides in terms of hiring non-white behind-the-camera talent as of late. After nearly a decade of getting successful white dudes to direct its films, the comic book movie behemoth has gone and hired Taika Waititi for the mega successful Thor: Ragnarok, Ryan Coogler for the even more successful Black Panther, and Anna Boden to co-direct the upcoming Captain Marvel.
And now the studio has taken another big step towards diversity by hiring Chinese filmmaker Chloé Zhao to direct its next project, The Eternals.
I think I’ll let Tessa Thompson express what I’m feeling right now.
Zhao’s hiring makes her the first woman of colour to helm an MCU movie and just the third female director for the franchise after Boden and Cate Shortland, who was recently tapped to direct a potential Black Widow movie.
And you know what? It’s about damn time we got more Chinese women directors in Hollywood.
Earlier this year, Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Domee Shi was able to craft a seven-minute animated masterpiece in the form of Bao after being given the nod by Pixar, so I can only imagine what kind of gold awaits us when Zhao gets cracking on The Eternals.
Now Zhao isn’t exactly a household name (yet) but she has some serious directing chops. Most recently, she wrote, directed, and produced 2017’s The Rider, which was critically-acclaimed and nominated for several prestigious independent film awards.
The Eternals marks the first time she’ll be given the keys to a big budget production, though the practice of hiring an unknown director and giving them a big pile of money isn’t new to Marvel, having done the exact same thing with almost all of its directors in recent years to great success.
For those wondering who exactly are The Eternals, it is (on paper) even weirder than what Guardians of the Galaxy was. It takes place millions of years in the past and revolves around beings called Celestials, whose experiments on early humanity resulted in heroes (the Eternals) and villains (the Deviants).
Sure the premise may be bonkers, but I have absolute faith that Zhao will do something special with The Eternals like what Coogler did with Black Panther.
As for when we can expect all this, no release date has been set, which is the only slightly bad piece of news in what’s been a happy story but hey, I’ll take it.