Chloé Zhao is currently promoting her follow-up to Marvel Studios’ Eternals, an adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel Hamnet. The 2020 book is based on William Shakespeare and his wife as they grieve the loss of one of their children, which would go on to inspire Hamlet. It makes sense that after making a movie where the Academy Award-winning director’s voice felt pulled in many directions, a more intimate movie would be her next choice.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Zhao talked about how her experience on Eternals informed her approach to Hamnet. The filmmaker also said working with a Disney budget on a Marvel property really pushed her range.
“Eternals prepared me for Hamnet because it’s world-building. Before that, I had only done films that existed in the real world. I also learned what to do and not to do—what’s realistic and what isn’t,” she said of the mixed reception she got on her Marvel movie, which shone in the moments Zhao’s visionary storytelling was on full display in sweeping visuals and powerful moments between the family of Gods.
But having such a big studio production surrounding her wasn’t the freeing experience you might expect. “Eternals had, like, an unlimited amount of money and resources … Eternals didn’t have a lot of limitations, and that is actually quite dangerous,” Zhao reflected. In the smaller-scaled Hamnet, “suddenly everything has meaning.”
The lead-up to the film’s release, as superhero-fatigued fans were getting uncertain about the more esoteric characters within the MCU, made it abundantly clear as an audience that Marvel Studios was beginning to let the expectations of what worked before inform what was put into the film along with what Zhao hoped to make. In the wake of the divisive discourse of what comic book movie fans thought about Eternals, plans for the sequel and its ensemble’s presence in team-up films were quietly scrapped.
Thankfully for Hamnet, Zhao had Steven Spielberg and Sam Mendes on her side. “Their feedback was very filmmaker-driven because they’re both incredible filmmakers, so when they gave me notes, they were already infused with what they knew was my style,” she shared of staying true to her choices while the Marvel film tried to do it all. “Even when I did things that probably were confusing or didn’t make sense to people, they would say, ‘You know what? We trust her. Let her do her thing.’”
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