Eternals Pulls In $71 Million Domestically And $161.7 Globally For Opening Weekend

[JayC]

The next chapter in the MCU opened this weekend with Eternals. The movie here in the United Stated brought in an estimated $71 Million making it the fourth-best opening weekend for any movie during the pandemic era. This puts it behind other Marvel movies that opened this year including “Black Widow” ($80.3 million), “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” ($75.3 million) and Sony's “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” ($90 million).

Internationally the movie did a bit better bringing in $90.7 million for a total weekend take of $161.7 million.

[Reno]

Spoiler Free Review:

I went and saw this movie last night (Sat, Nov 6) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Like most MCU movies, the tie to the source material is pretty flimsy - but let's be honest, they do always try to modernize and not tell the exact same story that someone would already know from reading the comics. Also as a given, you're never going to be able to do deep character building of this many new characters in even 3 hours - so it's harder to build any attachment to the characters or what happens to them. However, I don't know whether they could have told the same story with a smaller core cast. This realistically could have been 2 movies and had more development, but I think a gap of time in between the 2 halves would have likely been detrimental. We'll see how the Dune experiment works out, I guess. 

I personally feel that a lot of the hate for this movie has been more political than anything else. Some people just don't like the types of diversity showcased in this film. That's not an issue for me, so I came away very satisfied. I do hope that at least a few of these characters become long term pieces within the MCU going forward.

Lastly I didn't feel that you have to have any knowledge of the comics or prior MCU movies whatsoever to enjoy this film. You could have jumped on with this as your very first MCU movie and not missed a beat. There may have been less than 90 seconds of dialogue through the film where Thanos, Captain Rogers, Iron Man or the Avengers were referenced - and they really added nothing to the story other than to remind you that it's supposed to be the same universe. I felt that way for the most part with Shang-Chi as well (with the exception of the mid-credits scene), so those 2 movies have felt like a new beginning. Obviously Black Widow didn't fall into the same category, nor would it be likely for next month's Spiderman: No Way Home.

In the end, I enjoyed this movie, and am happy to have to it as part of the MCU and look forward to it's impact on future films.

[mako]

So, how long have you worked for Disney?

Just kidding, glad you liked the movie.

[Faust]

Great to see. Loved this film. 

[Fyrefly21]

I thought the movie was pretty unremarkable. Firmly okay territory. Better than the dumpster fire of Black Widow, but nowhere as entertaining as Shang-Chi. 

[Psychosomatic]

Eternals was a fun film, not anywhere near top of the list of Marvel films, but nowhere near the bottom either. When people watch films sometimes they know something is off without being able to pinpoint exactly what that is (case in point, if foley isn't done correctly, you could mistake the problem as lighting - it is a weird trick your mind plays). I think people are experiencing the same thing with Eternals... they sense something is off about it, but they don't really know what that is.  Audiences have come to expect a consistent experience from beginning to the post credit scenes, and they didn't get that with Eternals. This felt different, because it is the first time we have had a film filled with a band of characters we do not know, so we didn't start with any sort of investment. Yes, you could say the same was the case with Guardians, but Guardians was also comedic, and it poked fun at the fact that you didn't know them ("Star-Lord." "WHO?"), Eternals is quite serious (very little humor). There also hasn't been heavy exposition in any of the other films, and this one has a lot, which throws off the structure and rhythm.  However, Eternals had some very powerful and impressive plot and character elements, some of which are the best, or most interesting in any of the Marvel films to date... which leads to what I think was the main problem of the film - connective tissue. Endgame kept up the tension from beginning to end (even the slow, or funny moments still had a tension), but Eternals has some issues with keeping up that tension between the amazing elements, so there was a loss of momentum. The film had a great cast, acting was solid, and it looked absolutely beautiful (even the odd look of the deviants works once you see it on screen). It is a good film, but it could have been great.

[Dabboi]

I've not seen the film yet, but regardless if it's good or not. The MCU tried something that is a bit different for a change, that's awesome!

Plus, we got a freaking Eternals movie! That wouldn't have been possible 15, or even 10, years ago. What's it matter how "woke" it is, it's an Eternals movie and that fact alone, makes me want to see the movie. I think that we, as comic fans, should go see the movie in droves, that way Marvel Studios will continue to put out works that have a different feel to them. (The punch-quip-punch formula grew stale a few years ago now).

[GrtWhiteCustoms]

Saw the movie today...not that bad...not near as bad as I've read. I enjoyed a good portion of it. I really was surprised by the story and the extra after credit scenes made me smile.  

[ADour]

Watched the movie the other day. I went in with little expectations because I've never been sold on its existence but left pleasantly surprised. The cinematography is beautiful and I really appreciated the fact that it was more character-driven and slower paced. In some other movies, you can feel the character moving at a pace the plot demands, but this film allowed its scenes to breathe and its characters to shine in the smaller moments.

Speaking of characters, the cast was a lot of fun and it was pretty well-balanced. Although Ikaris and Sersi are clearly the leads, it doesn't feel like they're the only characters that matter. Even the smaller ones like Gilgamesh and Makkari didn't feel like they were just there. I also gotta mention how much fun Kingo and Druig were.

I found a few of the movie's narrative choices a bit jarring. Nothing movie-breaking or detracting, but still jarring. Not gonna go into detail because this forum has no way to tag spoilers, but one of them had to do with the role of Ikaris and the other with the role of Kro.

Overall, out of this year's films, I think Shang-Chi is still the best. Eternals is a very close second, and Black Widow gets an uninspired bronze.

[Atlantis]

On 11/7/2021 at 2:27 PM, Fyrefly21 said:

I thought the movie was pretty unremarkable....

With the time and money spent on this, they could've easily brought netflix Daredevil to the big screen, or done Tomb of Dracula, Elsa Bloodstone or even KillRaven, Warrior of the Worlds. 

[SpiderS]

I guess they really wanted To make new ip but also start planting seeds for more cosmic stuff that isn’t just guardians, and well we pretty much getting explanation why Galactus will come to earth as well as setting up that British horror corner of marvel but yeah it was purely functional with not much joy in the movie or characters. 

[Emnems80]

I felt the movie was ok. Not horrible, but not great. I wish it didn't jump time periods so much and told the story in a more linear way. It may have made the movie feel more like an epic which I would have liked better.