Chloé Zhao's Marvel detour and what came after

Chloé Zhao's Marvel detour — Eternals in 2021 — has been extensively discussed in the industry press, mostly in terms of the film's mixed reception. The more interesting story is the correction that followed. Zhao spent the two years after Eternals rebuilding the working practice that had produced Nomadland and Rider, and the film she has just released is the strongest work of her career. The Marvel experiment was, in retrospect, a survivable mistake and a clarifying one.

The problem with Eternals was structural, not talent-related. Zhao's method depends on long pre-production periods with non-professional cast, extensive location work, and a script that leaves room for improvisation during shooting. A Marvel production runs on tight schedules, professional casts, controlled environments, and scripts that are effectively locked before principal photography. The two working modes are not compatible, and no amount of talent bridges the gap when the incompatibility is at that structural level.

The correction Zhao made after Eternals was to return to first principles. The new film is shot in the American Southwest with non-professional cast, extensive pre-production location work, and a script that visibly changed during shooting. The result is not a copy of Nomadland — the register is different, the ensemble is smaller, the emotional stakes are more contained — but it is unmistakably a Zhao film, and it is a better one than either of her earlier features.

The critique that could be made of Zhao's correction is that it is essentially a retreat, and that the strong artist should have been able to make her method work at the Marvel scale rather than returning to the independent register. That critique is glib. Some methods do not scale, and part of directorial maturity is recognising which of your working practices are essential to the outcome and which are contingent. Zhao seems to have made that recognition and acted on it.

The larger lesson for younger directors is one Hollywood has been reluctant to teach: not every commission is a good fit, and the willingness to say no is arguably as important as the willingness to say yes. Zhao's Marvel commission was a rational decision at the time — the industry offered her a franchise-level platform after Nomadland's Best Picture win — and its outcome was not obviously predictable in advance. What she did after is what matters, and the answer is a career worth watching for the next twenty years.