Just a few days ago, we wrote about a rumor that was making the rounds that said Marvel Studios was developing a film based on the Eternals, a genetically enhanced race created by Marvel Comics legend Jack Kirby. Now producer Kevin Feige has given an Eternals movie update and confirmed that a film featuring those characters is in active development – potentially being eyed as a part of the studio’s upcoming Phase 4 slate. Plus, he teased the possibility of a Moon Knight movie. Read his quotes below.

Speaking with TheWrap, Feige confirmed that an Eternals movie is definitely in the works.

“Eternals is one of many many many things that we are actively beginning to have creative discussions about to see if we believe in them enough to put them on a slate.”

Feige insisted that a majority of the studio’s energy is being put toward Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Captain Marvel, Avengers 4, and the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming, but admitted that he and his team have begun developing movies for Marvel’s Phase 4:

“Those are the five things that are taking up 90 percent of our time. But there’s 10 percent we’re starting to go, ‘What’s going to be best?’ And some of that is you can take cues from everything we’ve done in the 22 movies before those — which is sequels to existing characters, new interpretation of existing characters and trying whole new swings with stuff that most people never heard of. So there are writers coming in on lots of different projects and lots of different ideas. And you’ll only start to hear more and more of it.”

So it sounds like an Eternals film is in the works, but still in the early stages of tossing around ideas and seeing if they can find a writer who has a pitch that works for them. Similarly, Feige has been thinking more about Moon Knight, telling ScreenRant that the character will show up in a movie…eventually:

“Yes. Does that mean five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now? There are stacks of character cards that we have in our development offices, which we look at. Which we pull for him, which we discussed.”

What Would An Eternals Movie Be About?

Back to the Eternals. Those characters first appeared in the pages of Marvel Comics in 1976. In Jack Kirby’s stories, The Celestials (an advanced alien race we’ve already met in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) visited Earth five million years ago and performed genetic experiments on early forms of life here, paving the way for mutants to exist. During their experiments, they created two new races: The Eternals and the Deviants, who eventually became bitter enemies. The Eternals are essentially immortal, living for millennia and possessing superhuman strength and the powers of flight, teleportation, shooting blasts of heat and energy from their hands, and mind control. (In the comics, Thanos is an Eternal.)

The Wrap says “multiple screenwriters have taken meetings and have been asked to come up with a story that focuses on the female Eternal known as Sersi”. For all of my fellow Greek mythology lovers out there, the comics posit that this is the same “Circe” who turned Odysseus’s sailors into pigs when they stumbled across her island following the Trojan War. In the more modern comic storylines, she poses as a NYC socialite and has served as a member of the Avengers.

We’ve known for a while that Phase 4 would feature a heavy concentration on cosmic stories, but the development of this property in particular strikes me as a shot across the bow at DC Films, who are currently working on a New Gods movie with Ava DuVernay at the helm. Like Eternals, New Gods is another Jack Kirby-created comic about two dueling alien races. The fact that Marvel is actively working on an Eternals film shows that Feige isn’t remotely concerned with being beaten to the punch by DC; box office receipts and consistent critical acclaim have given him the confidence to tell these stories however he wants and whenever he wants, so it’ll be fascinating to watch the parallel development of these two Kirby-inspired movies in the years to come.