Chloé Zhao is making moves to make sure her new film “Eternals” will not be censored once it hits the overseas markets.
During an interview with IndieWire, the Oscar-winning director, who helms the highly anticipated Marvel film, revealed she and Marvel have been working together to avoid the potential censorship of her film’s gay moments.
“I don’t know all the details but I do believe discussions were had and there’s a big desire from Marvel and myself — we talked about this — to not change the cut of the movie,” she explained. “Fingers crossed.”
“Eternals” features the MCU’s first-ever openly gay hero with Phastos, played by Brian Tyree Henry.
But according to Zhao, Phastos was already “written into the story” when she agreed to direct.
“The way Phastos’ story plays out in the film is that he’s someone who only sees humanity as a whole and believes that technology’s going to solve the problem. Obviously, he lost faith in us for some very tough things that we’ve done,” Zhao explained. “And then he had to stop looking at us as a whole and look at one person he falls in love with, and one child, to regain the face of humanity. It’s like us turning on the news and thinking it’s completely hopeless and then going home, looking at our lover and our child and going like, ‘Well actually this is worth fighting for.’”
“Eternals” will also feature the MCU’s first-ever sex scene.
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“From that moment to what you see onscreen there was definitely a lot of discussion about how to do it,” Zhao said. “But I think the desire to do something different is a very natural desire for where Marvel Studios is right now. I think it’s like Westerns coming into the revisionist period of the 70s. I think it’s happening to superhero films — or at least we’re on the edge of that. And so these scenes just started to happen naturally.”
Zhao added, “For us to be able to show two people who love each other, not just emotionally and intellectually but also physically, and to have a sex scene that will be seen by a lot of people that shows their love and compassion and gentleness — I think it’s a really beautiful thing.”
“Eternals” hits big screens on Nov. 5.
