John Ridley's Secret Marvel TV Series Finally Revealed 8 Years After ABC Announcement

Many Marvel projects have been announced and failed to materialize. We never got to see an Inhumans movie, and it eventually became a poorly-received TV series that was canceled after one season. Conversely, screenwriter John Ridley revealed that another Marvel project was originally envisioned as a TV show but then became a movie. 

Ridley, an accomplished writer who won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for "12 Years a Slave," was attached to a Marvel TV series back around 2015. He divulged on the "Comic Book Club" podcast that it would have centered on the Eternals. Discussing the planned ABC show while also criticizing the "Eternals" movie that ultimately came to fruition, Ridley said, "My version, or the good version, was so f***ing weird. There was my version, a good version, which is good to me, which — that doesn't mean anything. There was the version that [Marvel] ended up doing, which I don't think that version was particularly good, I'll be honest."

The "Eternals" that came out in 2021 came from another Oscar winner — director Chloé Zhao, who also worked on the screenplay. It proved to be one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's most divisive offerings, earning mixed responses from critics but a better reaction from fans. It's unclear if Ridley's interpretation would have proven more fortuitous, but it definitely would have pushed boundaries.

Chloé Zhao's "Eternals" explored territory not often seen in mainstream superhero movies. The story spanned millennia and explored the darkest sides of humanity, including the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. Due to their immortal nature and attempts to isolate themselves from the rest of humankind, the Eternals intrinsically present an opportunity to explore more nuanced themes than what you might get in other superhero media.

It sounds like John Ridley's "Eternals" TV pitch had a similar ambition to push what was possible within the medium. He described how his series would have opened, saying, "The first thing you see is a young man, probably about 17, 18 years old ... He's sitting there for a moment. And then he lifts his hands. He has a drill in it. And he turns the drill on. And he puts the drill to his ear. And he starts pushing it in. And then it goes from there." That first character wouldn't have been the only one with an unusual proclivity either. "Then I think you see another kid," Ridley continued. "He sleeps in the bathtub, covers himself with foil. It's just a really weird story about these people who are, I mean, it's just weird."

While the Eternals eventually did make it into the MCU, the future of the immortal beings remains up in the air. It's unclear if "Eternals 2" will ever happen or if that tease of Starfox (Harry Styles) at the end will forever remain unfulfilled.