The teaser for Chloé Zhao’s Eternals promises a Marvel movie unlike any other

It’s been a long year without Marvel movies, but the studio is making up for it by bringing fans four new blockbusters in the span of six months. Among them is Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao’s Eternals, a film that promises a new approach to storytelling in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And judging by the just-released teaser, this addition to Phase 4 succeeds at being unlike anything fans have seen from the franchise previously.

The first look at Eternals opens with some landscape shots that exemplify Zhao’s directorial style, then introduces the Eternals themselves. It’s no secret Eternals has a standout cast, and the teaser doesn’t need to do much legwork to remind us of that fact. Viewers will recognize Gemma Chan as Sersi, Game of Thrones alum Richard Madden as Ikaris, Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo and Angelina Jolie as Thena — and that’s only about half of our new superhero team.

Unfortunately, the teaser doesn’t give much insight into the group’s individual abilities, but it does hint at where they’ve been all this time — keeping to themselves as humans carved their own paths — and suggest that some threat will prompt them to finally intervene in Earthly affairs.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the official teaser for Marvel’s Eternals below: 

The very end of the teaser also reveals where Eternals falls in the MCU timeline, highlighting that the new team is coming onboard after Tony Stark and Steve Rogers have taken their final bows. This could certainly factor into the team’s newfound need to act rather than observe; the world is going to require new heroes to step up and protect it from supernatural threats.

How the Eternals team will factor into the rest of Phase 4 — and how they’ll find themselves tangled up with the rest of the Avengers — remains to be seen, but fans won’t have to wait too long to see how the group’s story unfolds. Zhao’s entry into the MCU arrives on November 5, the third Marvel movie that will hit theaters this year.

(And who knows, perhaps Black Widow or Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will segue into the story somehow.)

What do you think of the first look at Marvel’s Eternals? Are you excited to see this film when it hits theaters later this year? Sound off in the comments below.