Are You Excited About The Eternals? Maybe You Are...

...and just don't know it yet.

Full disclosure.  I've NEVER cracked an Eternals comic book.  My entire knowledge of the property comes from the motion comic dvd that Marvel put out a while back.  I picked it up to satisfy my completist inner obsessive, watched it once and forgot about it until recently.

With Avengers Endgame soon to wrap up its theatrical run (it's still playing in a few spots in North America and more abroad) Marvel is looking to "Phase 4" with an eye to new properties and maybe adding some new stars to the Marvel pantheon. 

Normally, I'm not in favour of casting "stars" as superheroes.  Villains, yes, sometimes.  Heroes, not really and the results back me up.  Look at the four most recent "big" stars to don superhero garb and it's 50/50 at best.  Robert Downey Jr. is the obvious exception, coming in to bring name appeal to a then virtually unknown character, Tony Stark/Iron Man.  Without Downey, there's likely no Marvel juggernaut to roll through the 2010s.  The next real "star" to hero up is Scarlett Johansen as Black Widow.  Despite having to wait a decade for the execs to figure out that the actress and her character deserved their own film, there's no question that ScarJo was successful.  Then came Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange.  Meh.  His solo film was forgettable and despite the character being pivotal in Infinity War/Endgame, I still say he was miscast.  Finally Ben Affleck as Batman.  Great in the role but his baggage, both personal and professional, took the focus in the wrong direction and we're getting a recast next year, likely sparkly vampire guy Robert Pattinson.  Another mistake in my opinion. 

But we were talking about The Eternals.  And star power.  It's looking pretty firm that Angelina Jolie is attached to play one of the Eternals and today it was suggested that Keanu Reeves might join her.  Normally I'd be saying that this much star mojo in one superhero film is bad news but in this case I'd suggest they pack the lineup with as many big names as the House of Mouse can find the money for.

Without star power, The Eternals is a long shot at best.  It's never been a terribly successful comic and name/character recognition is lower than even The Guardians of the Galaxy.  Further full disclosure, I place the two Guardians films in the lower tier of my rankings of the Marvel films.  They're not as funny as they think they are and not as charming either.  If I were making GGIII my first move would be to have Thor chuck Starlord off the Milano in the first act.  If they go for a GG tone for The Eternals, they're well advised to have a Reeves and a Jolie on the screen or it's going to fall flat on its cosmic face.

So The Eternals is a "cosmic" Marvel property that involves a group of aliens who are hiding on Earth in the modern day but don't actually know that they are super powerful cosmic beings.  When I watched the motion comic adaptation I thought it could make for a good tv series, have a core group of 4 or so players who early on figure out their origins and then a season or 2 to gather the troops and finally confront the big bad in season 3 or so.  I guess the powers that be prefer acts to seasons.  It still could work but it's SO far away from the known Marvel stuff and unlike the dismal Inhumans series, there's zero set up buried in the first 3 phases of Marvel.

Can it be successful?  You'd have lost a LOT of money betting against Marvel over the past decade, but this one might be the one.  As a non-fan of the actors lining up and the property itself, I wouldn't bet the farm either way but I might bet a nice lunch against it.  Marvel's gotta flop sometime, one would think...