Eternals Director Reveals Biggest Critic of MCU’s First Sex Scene

Eternals finally hits theaters this week and while the film currently has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score in the MCU, the film has always been set to be unlike anything else in the franchise to date. The film will follow a race of immortal beings with superhuman powers that have secretly lived on Earth for millennia, yet have been instructed only to interfere in very specific circumstances but in addition to that massive history, the film will also bring something else into the MCU: its first sex scene. Now, director Chloe Zhao is opening up about who the biggest critic of that scene was and, it turns out, it was Zhao herself.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Zhao explained that the scene, which takes place between Sersi (Gemma Chan) and Ikaris (Richard Madden), was in the version she read from the beginning, but while everyone was on board with how it came together on film – including the people at Disney – Zhao herself kept questioning if it was okay.

“That has been in the treatment that I read from the beginning,” Zhao said. “We knew that to tell a mature love story, a love story that spans thousands of years, to not do any kind of intimate scene felt unnatural to me. And everyone was on the same page. Once we filmed it and edited it together, we did show some folks to see their reactions. And everyone, Disney as well, said, ‘That is a beautiful display of love,’ [regarding] the way our actors played it together and the way it fit into the mood and where it is in the film. So everyone was like, ‘Let’s do it!’ If anything, I was the one who was like, ‘Is it okay? Can we do this?’ But everyone was supportive of that.”

Audiences will get to see that scene for themselves when Eternals hits theaters on November 5th and projections seem to indicate that, despite the reviews, there will be plenty of fans on hand for that. The film is projected for a $75 million opening weekend and ticket sales are currently outpacing those for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Black Widow remains the best-selling Marvel release this year.) Additionally, of those who have pre-purchased their tickets, Fandango revealed that 98-percent of 1000 customers sampled are excited for the film, which features nearly a dozen new characters while 97-percent are looking forward to a “different kind” of movie from Marvel Studios.

Eternals enters theaters on November 5th while Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will be available for Disney+ subscribers to stream on November 12th.

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