Over the 23 films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far, Marvel Studios has been known to occasionally reimagine one of its characters by gender-swapping them. For Eternals, however, Marvel Studios is gender-swapping three main characters: Makkari, Sprite, and Ajak.
After a long wait, Marvel Studios finally announced their Phase 4 plans at Thor: Love and Thunder. Directed by Chloe Zhao, Marvel's Eternals, which releases in November of next year, tells the story of immortal aliens known as the Eternals who were sent to Earth by the Celestials to battle the Deviants.
At SDCC 2019, Marvel confirmed the cast for the Eternals movie, which includes Salma Hayek as Ajak, Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, and Lia McHugh as Sprite. What's interesting about these casting choices is that Ajak, Makkari, and Sprite are all male characters in the comics.
Sprite, though an immortal, has the body of a child and a mischievous personality. Ajak, who was worshiped by the Aztecs as Quetzalcoatl, is an archaeologist with a deep interest in the history of the Celestials. Makkari is a speedster obsessed with becoming the fastest being in the universe, and easily the most important and heavily featured of the three in the comics.
Gender-swapped characters in a Marvel movie is nothing new. Tilda Swinton was cast as a Celtic version of the Ancient One in Doctor Strange. Mar-Vell in Captain Marvel. In the comics, Mar-Vell was the first hero to carry the mantle of "Captain Marvel". In the movie, Mar-Vell is an unpowered Kree scientist played by Annette Bening, with the decision to change up the status quo coming late in pre-production.
While Marvel has gender-swapped established characters before, this is the first time a MCU movie has changed the genders of not one, but three characters. Marvel's changes to the core of the Eternals don't stop there either. Salma Hayek's Ajak is being positioned as the leader of the Eternals, a position that originally went to the male Odin-like figure, Zuras. It's possible that since Eternals is such an obscure property full of characters that are largely unknown to most audiences, Marvel Studios is more willing to take liberties with the source material.
