Chloe Zhao opened up about how Marvel's Eternals big budget served her a reality check on the filming limitations and how the it ultimately proved be "quite dangerous" in the end.
The director of the film explained how the expensive Marvel film prepared her for her latest film and the lesson she learnt from it.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, to promote Hamnet, she said, "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."
"Eternals had, like, an unlimited amount of money and resources. And here we have one street corner that we can afford, to [stand in for] Stratford," she added.
Zhao went on to explain, "Eternals didn’t have a lot of limitations, and that is actually quite dangerous. Because we only have that street corner [in Hamnet], suddenly everything has meaning."
However, despite having plenty of budget and unlimited freedom for creativity, the Eternals was not well received by the critics.
Yet the film having the star-studded cast that included Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry, and Barry Keoghan, among others, managed to gross $402 million at the worldwide box office in 2021.
Zhao's William and Agnes Shakespeare new drama, Hamnet, starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley is set for release on January 9, 2026.