Cousins Ryan Firpo and Kaz Firpo both felt a deep connection to storytelling, but it wasn’t until they formed a partnership that they were able to break into the industry.
Their script Ruin, about a nameless ex-Nazi captain after WWII who hunts down the surviving members of the SS Death Squad, actually won the 2017 Black List (and is now listed as pre-production with Margot Robbie attached and Justin Kurzel set to direct).
Originally, Eternals was going to be the first film of Marvel’s Phase Four (before Black Widow and Shang-Chi), but quarantine scheduling pushed back the release date. Regardless of the release date (originally November 2020) which pushed the movie to be the 26th Marvel movie, the screenwriters had a truly unique situation when writing the film.
Basically, they had to craft an Avengers-like movie without the benefit of having ten other movies to develop characters. Rather than getting to Tony Stark and Steve Rogers over time, we were introduced to Sersi, Ikaris, Thena, Ajak, Kingo, Sprite, Phastos, Druig, Makkari, Gilgamesh, Karun, and Dane Whitman all at once.
In this interview, the Firpo Cousins talk about how Hollywood bleeds into creative pursuits, Marvel’s Phase Four, how screenwriting emerges the creative mind with the engineering mind, and when to cross boundaries as a writer.
There are some partial spoilers in this interview if you haven’t seen Eternals and you can also find the print version on Creative Screenwriting’s website.
If it’s your first time listening, make sure to subscribe and visit my new website for information on the YouTube channel, the blog, this podcast, and my new book ‘Ink by the Barrel’ which takes advice from these 200+ interviews at the link below…
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