Our Work on Eternals

Eternals introduces a new group of immortal superheroes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We worked closely with the filmmakers to bring the Eternals’ golden cosmic energy to life and created the visual effects for the third act, complete with lead Deviant Kro, the giant Celestial Tiamut, fully CG environments, and the end credits scene.

Director Chloé Zhao’s iconic location-based filmmaking style is unique within the MCU, staying true to the onset location as much as possible. Our work on the third act, in particular the environments, required subtle artistry and matte painting to integrate otherworldly elements with the plate photography. In-house technological innovations, including a new proxy water simulation, meant we could add CG elements like debris to a beach while retaining the natural movement of waves from the plate photography, allowing the water to flow naturally around the digital object.

We created fully digital environments, including an Alaskan ice cave, the ancient Aztec city of Tenochtitlan as it suffers an attack by Spanish conquistador Cortés, and a replica of the beach that hosts a battle between the Eternals. We worked with the filmmakers to co-create the story beats of this fight, creating key shots first with previs, before incorporating realistic digi-doubles of the cast.

We built the nine-foot lead Deviant, Kro, in his evolved humanoid phase with tentacles and an exterior musculature, and key-frame animated him based on an onset reference performance by actor Bill Skarsgård.