A few years ago, Chloé Zhao had an incredible breakthrough as a filmmaker when she made the 2021 Best Picture winner Nomadland (which she also won Best Director for). Later that year, she released her ambitious superhero movie, Eternals, which unfortunately became one of our lowest MCU entries on our Marvel movies ranking. Zhao hasn’t released a film since, but she’s about to for the first time in four years as the director of the Hamnet movie adaptation.
On the heels of her Shakespeare drama Hamnet coming out among the 2025 movie releases this fall, Chloé Zhao was asked about why she went on a hiatus after Nomadland and Eternals. Here’s what said:
That’s a really good question. I don’t think anyone’s asked me that … I needed a break after Eternals and Nomadland because these two films were very intense. (Laughs.) [They were] back-to-back, making them and coming out. So I think it was the accumulation of a decade of me working non-stop … And I’ve changed a lot as a person.
While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Zhao shared that she needed a break from directing after making two buzzy movies in a row. As she added:
I really wanted to have a period where I get to just decompress — because that takes time — instead of jumping onto the next thing. I’m always guided by what comes from inside [me] instead of what’s external. And it took about four years to do! But I also started a company with my producing partner, Nic [Book of Shadows]. So we’re doing quite a lot of producing, which is really exciting.
As Chloé Zhao pointed out, it’s not like she quit working all together. She started her own production company called Book of Shadows with Nic Gonda. She’s also been working on Hamnet since boarding what’s one of this year’s most exciting upcoming book adaptations back in April 2023. Zhao filmed the movie, which stars Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley, in the summer of 2024. So she only really had a couple of years of “off” time without a project to direct.
While Eternals was certainly a big moment for the filmmaker, it didn’t quite make an impression on audiences intended, from its low Rotten Tomatoes scores (for an MCU title) and its box office packing up at $402 million despite its projected $200-$250 million production budget. While it may have turned a profit, it was a smaller one in comparison to what we know is capable from MCU movies.
Since Eternals came out, there’s been no mention of the team in the MCU since. When Chloé Zhao was previously asked about a possible sequel, she said “no comment” before reflecting about how “it's almost impossible to make everybody perfectly happy” with such a massive movie like that. Considering the undertaking that was Eternals, it certainly makes sense why Zhao took a break at the time.
But she’s back in business between Hamnet (which is getting very good first reactions since its recent premiere) hitting theaters November 27, and the exciting Buffy reboot she’s working on with Sarah Michelle Gellar for Hulu on the way.
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