“Storytelling is kind of in our blood,” said Ryan Firpo, one half of the Firpo writing team. “Our great-grandmother was actually a famous stage actress in Paris. She was a performer and stage actress, and we’ve always had those kinds of people in our family.”
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. “We grew up making movies in the backyard, and we eventually realized someone needs to write scripts, and then you tell more and more sophisticated stories,” said Kaz Firpo.
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).
“Just being around stories as kids puts its hooks in you,” added Kaz, “but then on a technical level, we approached it like a full-time job. You have to read every script book to know they’re utterly pointless, but you have to read them. So I read Robert McKee, Syd Field, and even Screenwriting 101 by Film Crit Hulk, this anonymous writer.”
Ryan and Kaz Firpo
By “attacking screenwriting,” the cousins were on their way thanks to “trial and error” and “writing sprints.” Kaz added, “Just the process of finishing something [is everything] because it’s so hard. Finishing is the challenge.”
Writing Collaborations
“The way it began,” said Kaz of their process, “is with a codified system. I sort of accidentally developed this system [at NYU Film School]. You basically take all that story in your imagination and make it more tangible and practical.”
Kaz credits Ryan for being able to keep a whole movie in his head, but their notecard system is where the collaboration often begins. “For me, it’s a process. You take in information. So for Ruin, which was sort of a grim Western set in apocalyptic Germany, but it’s based on true stories and research.”
This meant reading a ton of books, going to libraries, and watching movies set in the time frame, or more specifically, set in the same tone. “Sometimes we watched literal Westerns. Sometimes we watched Space Westerns, but we tried to fill ourselves up with story. Then, you write the cards.”
The cards are then used to plot out character arcs, plot points, story themes, underlying threads, and everything else in between. This is useful for a war-era Western and it’s perhaps even more useful for a Marvel film focused on twelve characters that audiences have never seen before on screen.
“We had an intern color coding cards [for Eternals] to help keep track of arcs. That’s a system I swear by. Once you do the cards, then you can do the outline, which is another 20-30 pages. That outline is one of the core aspects of the movie. We swear by the research phase, the outline, the draft.”
“My personal feeling now is that you should adopt a process that fits the story best. That system is very productive and effective and we use it constantly, but there are other methods you can use with other stories,” said Ryan. “I’ve tried to adopt processes that match what’s on the page. You need all the muscles to become a good storyteller.”
Marvel Phase Four
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.
“From the jump, we wanted it to be a story about characters. There are hundreds of Eternals and we were given this treasure chest [of characters ] to devour and come back with a story,” said Kaz. “We wanted to take people where they haven’t been before, challenge them, and create something new for a Marvel movie.”
When gods struggle, it makes it a bit easier to be human
In this particular instance, this meant thinking about superhero stories as stories of struggle. “I think when gods struggle, it makes it a little bit easier to be human. With Eternals, we wanted to interrogate the myth of the superpowered being, but still create something that entertains.”
This leads to an interesting juxtaposition on screen where the film is both entertaining and dense. And, with any Marvel movie, it’s always more than just the movie, as there are sequels in the works and Easter-egg ridden clues in the after-credits scenes.
Writing for Marvel
There are potential spoilers ahead for Eternals…
“We have a broad strokes idea of where it could go,” said Ryan. “I describe it like chess. If you’re a good chess player, you’re going to checkmate the other opponent, but you’re not sure how you’re going to do it, so you need to give yourself multiple paths to victory.”
In some ways, this means building an open-ended narrative that is still satisfying. “There were a lot of different things that got auditioned there,” Ryan said of the two after-credits scenes. “We tried out different versions based on how the script was wrapping up.”
“We like to call them open doors,” said Kaz. “You want to satisfy your audience. You want to teach them something. But, you also want to leave some doors open. The audience wants to guess what happens next.”
The writers said they always knew they wanted to introduce Eros / Starfox (Harry Styles). “He’s such a great counterpoint to every other Eternal. His superpower is making people fall in love with him. What a great toy to play with in the sequels. Then, of course, there’s the intergalactic cosmic rescue mission, which we also talked a lot about.”
Eros / Starfox (Harry Styles)
With this in mind, they were able to further expand upon another idea, which extended the Marvel universe in both space and time. “We could go to the past and the deeply weird cosmic future. It’s only the biggest possible arc a Marvel movie can have, so what can go wrong?”
The cousins are also good friends with Stacy Osei-Kuffour (Watchmen, The Morning Show), who is writing the new Blade (Mahershala Ali) reboot, which is subtly hinted at in the second post-credit. “We’re very excited to see what she does with that.”
How Power Shapes Character
In one of the first scenes of the film, audiences get to see the characters in action fighting against The Deviants. Very quickly, audiences can pick up which characters have which powers as the action plays out. Again, this is different from previous films.
“It was all about figuring out which team could best help humanity and advance over time. So you think about powers that can be useful to humanity and also explain different phenomenons and advancements in human evolution.”
Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) for example, is given credit for passing along the engine and the plow. Sprite (Lia McHugh) is a great storyteller who gave us the story of Ikaris (Richard Madden) when he flew too close to the sun.
Sprite (Lia McHugh)
“Speaking to the way they’re introduced, there’s a certain amount of credit we give to an audience. They’ve developed a language and a sense for these things so we can throw people into an unfolding sequence and they can catch up a lot quicker than they could twenty years ago.”
This same analysis helps the writers if they ever feel stuck in a scene or with a plot. “It’s about characters making choices. If you’re in a situation, space gods or whatever, these are people making choices about their fates and what they want. We hope these choices are rooted in ideology.”
“If we can populate the universe and the script in ways that are inevitable, we knew the third act turn would be something we could explore. This is a story about duty versus responsibility. What do you choose? Are you the loyal soldier or will you support the ones you love? Does faith beat family? There is no clean answer and that’s what makes life challenging.”
“Screenwriting is one of those funny things where, because so many people have seen movies, they think they know how to tell a story,” joked Kaz. “But in screenwriting, you fail a lot to succeed. You have to write a lot of scripts. Write a lot of ideas. It’s not going to be perfect. It takes practice. You should fail. You should find a challenge. You should be prepared to fail to succeed. Go to the edge. Challenge the audience. Cross boundaries.”
“Kaz and I are both puzzle people,” said Ryan. “We see screenwriting as a merger of an engineering mind and an artistic mind. There’s a structure. There’s a parameter. There’s a format. But you have to hit those beats and do it differently. It’s always about fitting the puzzle pieces together in a new way. It taxes your creative artistic abilities and puzzle solving.”
This interview has been condensed. Listen to the full audio version here.
