Cancelled MCU TV Show Would Have Introduced Powerful Marvel Team 6 Years Before Their Official Debut

John Ridley finally breaks his silence on what his mysterious MCU TV show was going to be, revealing it was about a Marvel team who got a movie.

John Ridley’s Marvel Cinematic Universe TV show that he was working on for ABC in 2015 comes to light as he reveals what characters he was developing a show around. Prior to the MCU TV shows on Disney+, ABC was one of the primary destinations for Marvel series, including Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter. For several years, there was a mysterious MCU TV show being developed by Ridley that was said to be a reinvention of a certain Marvel property. However, it never went forward.

After several years of not hearing about the MCU TV show he was working on, Ridley finally opened up about what his project was meant to be for ABC. During an appearance on the Comic Book Club podcast, Ridley confirmed it was, in fact, an Eternals TV show that he was developing before it became an MCU Phase 4 movie, sharing the following:

What are they going to do, fire me for the work I’m not [It is] not in the works anymore [but] was a television version of the Eternals, but good. There was my version, a good version, which is good to me…. which doesn’t mean anything. There was the version that [Marvel] ended up doing which… I don’t think that version was particularly good — I’ll be honest — and for all kinds of reasons.

How John Ridley’s Eternals Show Would’ve Been Different From The MCU Movie

If Eternals had moved forward as a television series on ABC, Ridley went on to explain that it would have been “a really weird story about these people.” According to Ridley, the Eternals pilot would have opened with a teenage kid putting a power drill to his ear and pushing it in, which in itself is a strange way to start a new show. In terms of how many episodes, it wouldn’t be shocking if Eternals had gotten 13 episodes ordered by ABC, given the obscurity of that property.

While only Ridley knows the full Eternals TV show story details in depth, his series would likely also have allowed these characters to be more fleshed out. One of the big problems with the Eternals movie was that the audience was introduced to a whole slew of characters they had never met before, which is a lot to take in, to say the least. Usually, with most MCU projects, there is always an established character from other movies or shows that acts as the eyes and ears for the audience as they get introduced to new heroes or villains.

Even though Eternals may not have happened on ABC, it would have been intriguing to see what Ridley was planning to do with the characters before their MCU movie debut. Time will tell if Ridley ever shares more specific plot details about his Eternals TV show. Hopefully, Ridley will get another shot at an MCU property down the line for Marvel Studios.