After including nearly 100 characters in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, Marvel probably didn’t even break a sweat by having just 10 heroes show up in Eternals. But the new movie marks the MCU debut for Jack Kirby’s team of immortal warriors, so the filmmakers needed to make sure that each one had the right amount of screentime. According to screenwriters (and cousins) Kaz and Ryan Firpo, this is why two additional heroes were cut from the original script.
Director Chloé Zhao previously shared that early Eternals drafts featured a 12-character lineup. But while speaking with Deadline’s Hero Nation Podcast, the Firpos revealed that one of the heroes who ended up on the cutting room floor was Vampiro, a fanged Eternal whom Ryan said was a favorite of producer Nate Moore. Created by Roy Thomas and Arvell Jones, Vampiro made his first appearance in Thor #290 in 1979. Like other Eternals, he possesses superhuman strength and the ability to fly. Plus, he also made a living as a professional luchador. He even maintained an undefeated streak until he was injured by another wrestler named El Toro Rojo. However, his opponent was later revealed to be a Deviant in disguise.
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Unfortunately, the cousins were cut off before they could reveal the identity of the second hero who didn’t make the final script. But they managed to share some new insight into how the screenplay evolved over time.
“From the beginning, I think that they just liked the idea of having a dozen, you know?” explained Ryan. “It’s a nice number, and so they were kind of pushing that and then we were saying, ‘ah, that’s quite a lot of people that we’ve never met before.’ But they were just sort of like, ‘let’s try it.’ And so we did it for one draft and then the very first thing they [said was], ‘okay, let’s only have 10.’”
“There are literally hundreds of Eternals,” added Kaz. “We were given a binder, and when we first started this process, Ryan and I just sat down and we flipped through the pages and we picked the ones that we thought could best reflect the world [and] whose powers were the most interesting and compelling. And that really was our journey from the beginning. This is a movie about a family; and we said this is a found family (Ryan likes to say a ‘circus family’). And we wanted to make sure that all over the world, people would see themselves in this movie for sure.”
Eternals hits theaters tonight before opening in wide release tomorrow, November 5.
Would you like to see Vampiro show up in a future Eternals installment? Tell us what you think in the comment section below!
Recommended Reading: The Eternals by Jack Kirby Vol. 1
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