Shooting Marvel’s ‘Eternals’ in the Canary Islands
Anna Marie de la Fuente When Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) signed on to direct superhero epic “Eternals,” she was given free rein to take the film in whichever direction she chose. That creative freedom allowed her to shoot “Eternals” on Spain’s Canary Islands, among other sites. It became the Marvel film that shot the most on-location of any in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “You want to see the character in relationship to the world behind them. It’s very difficult to make that feel real on stage. So going to a location was a very natural progression,” Zhao says in Marvel Studios doc “Assembled: The Making of Eternals.” Canary island Fuerteventura is known for its rugged landscape and black-sand beaches. It stood in well for Mesopotamia, Babylon, the Neanderthal era and the Australian Outback in the fantasy film, which spans 7,000 years and some eight epochs. Sister island Lanzarote and its iconic and most accessible volcano, the Cuervo, also formed a dramatic backdrop, especially in the final set pieces.