Marvel Studios Developing Eternals; Looking Into Nova, Moon Knight

As with almost every Marvel Studios press junket, anything about sequels or developing films will break. That is no different with Avengers: Infinity War. Though much of the talk will be focused on who will survive the latest Avengers, there are already talks about three different potential titles.

According to various reports, Marvel Studios is setting their sights on developing films for Nova, Eternals, and Moon Knight. More on the story below.

In an interview with ComicBook.com, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige talked about the possibility of having Nova in the MCU, which would fulfill the promise that Phase 4 would have more of an intergalactic feel. Here is what he had to say:

â€œNova isâ€¦ if we have a big board with a bunch of characters that have more immediate potential, Nova is on that board. Because of the connection to the Guardians universe, because there are more than one examples to pull from in the comics that are interesting. And youâ€™re absolutely right, he was in the earliest drafts of the [Guardians of the Galaxy].â€

That last bit is true. The Nova core played a minor role the first Guardians of the Galaxy. In the comics, when the last surviving member of the planet Xandar’s elite Nova Corps, Rhomann Dey, is dying, he selects New York high school student Richard Rider to replace him. That almost came true in the first Guardians when nearly the entire Nova corps were wiped out by Ronan the Accuser.

But what makes Nova an interesting character is that he is also a member of various groups including the New Warriors and Secret Avengers. It will be interesting to see how Marvel will approach their new heroes and start to build towards forming a new group.

Another Marvel hero that has huge potential is Moon Knight. While his appearance in the MCU is inevitable, it is all about finding the right time to introduce the character rather than putting him in it just for the sake of it. Here’s what Feige told Screen Rant:

â€œYes. 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.â€

Moon Knight was one of the characters that Sitwell mentioned during his interrogation in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. In the comics, he was known as Marc Spector, a former marine turned mercenary who stumbles upon an archaeological dig and uncovers statue of the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. However, a dispute with a fellow mercenary ends in defeat, and Spector is left to die in the sub-zero cold desert temperatures. However, a secret sect carries Spector to their temple and wrap him in the same bandages of Khonshu. In doing so, they gave him increased strength, endurance, and agility depending on the lunar cycle.

It should be interesting to see how Marvel Studios writers task with developing that story get around the lunar cycle weakness. But that is a report for another time.

As for Eternals, Feige tells The Wrap that they are another group of heroes being considered for the big screen:

â€œEternals 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.â€

Well, we saw how well that worked out for Inhumans, which was a title that was under Ike Perlmutter before the title met its demise and was turned into another boring Marvel Entertainment television show. However, now that Feige is running the show, it is going to be very different.

What the future holds for the MCU is unclear. Even Feige says that most of their time and energy is being spent on developing the titles they have now, like Ant-Man and the Wasp, Captain Marvel, Avengers 4, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and the Spider-Man: Homecoming sequel, while the remaining is looking into getting more heroes out there:

â€œThose are the five things that are taking up 90 percent of our time. But thereâ€™s 10 percent weâ€™re starting to go, â€˜Whatâ€™s going to be best?â€™ And some of that is you can take cues from everything weâ€™ve done in the 22 movies before those â€” 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 youâ€™ll only start to hear more and more of it.â€

I suppose we will learn a lot more about the future of the MCU when Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters on April 27, 2018.