Every new Marvel Cinematic Universe project that comes to either theaters or Disney Plus is going to invite speculation about whether it plans to lay any of the groundwork for the next Avengers movie, and Eternals is no different.
The Disney Plus shows haven’t really concerned themselves with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes other than anointing Sam Wilson as the new Captain America, but Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings unveiled a promo during its opening weekend confirming that Simu Liu’s title hero was the newest part of the team.
The Avengers are assembling again, that much we know for a fact, but in a set visit interview with ComicBook, producer Nate Moore played it about as coyly as you’d expect when asked if Eternals would be nodding towards Avengers 5 in any way.
“I think you can, or you can not, you know what I mean?. And I think, Avengers 4 was called Endgame for a reason. We haven’t really talked in a real way about what an Avengers 5 would be even. I think we can have it either way if we want. We could build towards it or we could just say, ‘Hey, here’s a standalone Avengers movie’. And I think as long as the story was strong and interesting enough people will come and see it.
We’re kind of nerds so we like to build towards things and we like to spread bread crumbs and see where they come. But yeah, and I think audiences also kind of want to be surprised. So, to some degree, we don’t want to say, ‘You saw that trick, let’s do that trick again’. What’s the new way to surprise people if, and when we did an Avengers movie, what would be the funnest version of that?”
Mentions of Endgame have been all over the Eternals marketing campaign, so the superhero team is evidently going to impact the narrative in a noticeable fashion. Looking at the sheer number of projects in development at Marvel Studios, though, there’s a lot of world-building and expansion left before we can even consider the Avengers teaming up to save the universe for the fifth time.
