Eternals director Chloé Zhao responded to the movie's poor reviews and asked fans to watch the film on Disney+.
In an Instagram story, Zhao posted an image from Rotten Tomatoes' account on the same platform. The post from Rotten Tomatoes asks if Eternals should be the lowest-ranked film in the MCU and links to a debate on that subject. Zhao replied by asking fans to join in on the debate or, if they aren't sure, to watch the movie on Disney+ when it drops later this month.
Released in Oct. 2021, Eternals saw the titular group of Celestial-created beings coming to Earth to fight against a foe called the Deviants. After defeating the Deviants, the Eternals split apart. However, following the events of 2019's Avengers: Endgame and the reversal of Thanos' snap, the Eternals team back up to take on the newly returned Deviants and prevent an event known as the Emergence.
Commercially, Eternals earned $401.5 million worldwide against a budget of approximately $200 million. While that box office is low for a Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Eternals opened during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which had many reticent to return to theaters. Eternals is also not set to release in China, which is one of the biggest market for films.
However, despite those mitigating factors in terms of box office numbers, Eternals did not fare well with critics. At the time of writing, the movie holds a 47 percent critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the first and only MCU film to be considered "Rotten" on the review aggregator. Despite that low critical score, Eternals' audience score is much higher and sits at 78 percent.
After making two short films, Zhao made her feature film debut with 2015's Songs My Brothers Taught Me, which was nominated for a Caméra d'Or Award at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Prior to Eternals, she directed Nomadland. Released in 2020, that film won a number of major accolades, including Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director.
Directed by Zhao from a script by herself, Patrick Burleigh, Ryan Firpo and Kaz Firpo, Eternals is slated to release on Disney+ on Jan. 12, with a physical media release to follow on Feb. 15. Special features include commentaries, deleted scenes and more. At this time, there's no indication Marvel Studios is working on a sequel to Eternals.
Source: Instagram