During 2024’s Geeked Week, Netflix has just released the superb trailer for The Eternaut/El Eternauta, the first audiovisual adaptation of the iconic graphic novel by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and illustrated by Francisco Solano López, and this apocalyptic thriller looks like it could be one for the books. First published in 1957, El Eternautais widely considered to be one of the most important and influential works in Latin American comic history. The story follows a man named Juan Salvo, who, along with his family and friends, witnesses a strange snowfall that wipes out most of Buenos Aires’ population. The snow is actually a deadly radioactive substance, released as part of an alien invasion that slowly reveals itself.
Juan eventually becomes known as “El Eternauta” (The Eternaut) due to his long journey across time and space in an effort to reunite with his lost family, and in the process, he becomes a kind of timeless traveler, as he witnesses different eras and apocalyptic events, all the while struggling to survive and find his loved ones. The series is created by Bruno Stagnaro and is written by Stagnaro and Ariel Staltari.
Why is ‘The Eternaut’ Being Made Now?
Stagnaro shared an emotional statement with Netflix when the series was announced, describing the importance of the story to him and the familial connections which drew him to it in the first place.
“For me, El Eternauta represents my father bringing me the comics every week. I believe it was one of the first things I read in its entirety in my life, at the age of 10, and it had a profound impact on my way of understanding fiction made in my country.
The feeling that first reading left me was with me throughout my life and, in some way, had a great influence on what I did later… A feeling that the city is a living presence, almost like one more character.
I think that part of the charm of making El Eternauta is understanding how to overcome the technical difficulty involved in building the world in which it happens. This will be an unusual challenge for our industry, and that motivates me a lot, because I believe it can set a precedent on facing this type of project in our country.
My approach to the adaptation will be to be faithful to that child reader who looked at the story for the first time, trying to reconstruct the genuine emotion of living an adventure in the corner of the neighborhood and the construction of that great Argentine hero who is Juan Salvo.”
The Eternaut will debut on Netflix in 2025. Watch the trailer above.
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