You know the deal by now: Eternals, the latest Marvel movie starring a new batch of emotionally stunted misfits and superpowered weirdos, has two post-credits scenes to tee up both its own sequel and further developments for the MCU at large. Following the Hollywood premiere in late October, director Chloé Zhao talked about how both scenes came to be, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, here’s your warning.
The first post-credits is the one you’re probably well aware of by now: after saving Earth from being destroyed by the birth of a new Celestial, Sersi (Gemma Chan), Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), and Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), are captured by Arishem (David Kaye). It falls to Druig (Barry Keoghan), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), and Thena (Angelina Jolie), who are currently travelling the galaxy searching for other Eternals, to rescue their friends, but they won’t be alone in this endeavour. Enter: Eros, brother of Josh Brolin’s big bad Thanos, (and played by One Direction singer Harry Styles), who’s beamed onto their ship to offer his aid.
“I still can’t believe it happened,” Zhao told Variety after the movie’s premiere. She’d originally pitched Eros and his buddy Pip (a CG troll voiced by Patton Oswalt) to producer Kevin Feige, and she already knew she wanted Styles for the role. She’d been enamoured with his performance in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, and thought he’d excel at playing a good-looking scumbag who is also a massive fuckboi. “He’s very interesting and unique,” she said of the singer-turned-actor. “And I thought that is Eros. That’s that character…I just was very, very excited when Kevin [went], ‘Let’s do it.’”
And then there’s the second scene, which jumps back to Earth. Having watched his girlfriend Sersi get snatched up, Dane Whitman (Kit Harrington) goes back to his home and stares at a crate. After much back and forth, Dane opens it up, at which point we see the Ebony Blade, something that he thinks may be able to help, even if it may come with some repercussions. But just before Dane can grab it, a man off screen asks, “Are you sure you’re ready for that, Mr. Whitman?” At which point, Dane turns his head and the movie cuts to black.
It didn’t take long for fans to come to the conclusion that the voice belonged to Blade, who’ll be played by Mahershala Ali in a future solo flick directed by Bassam Tariq, and Zhao confirmed it herself. “That was the voice of one of my favourite superheroes, Mr. Blade himself,” she told Fandom. The Daywalker and Dane were briefly part of a superhero team together that operated in London, hence his short inclusion in the film. But outside of this cameo, she’s as in the dark on his new movie as the rest of us. “ I don’t know what they’re doing with the movie, but Mahershala is is a treasure. It’s going to be epic.”
As for Dane, Harrington told Variety he didn’t even know it was Blade speaking to him until a few weeks before the premiere. But he did admit that Marvel floated the topic of the two swordsmen to him when first approached for the role. What does that mean going forward? As he’s said in the past, he’s apparently got no clue. “I had some inkling that there was going to be a kind of crossover there, from early conversations…I don’t know what the future is, and I have no idea. There’s nothing written. Nothing I’ve been told.”
Marvel’s Eternals is now in theatres.