Screenwriter Eric Pearson once spent an entire week watching Captain America: The First Avenger in five-minute increments. His mission: find split-second moments in which star Chris Evans could add lines such as “head to the base!” during ADR to help tie the movie together.
Massaging dialogue into a movie that’s essentially completed is considered grunt work for a screenwriter. There’s no opportunity to really shape the story, and for Pearson, there would be no credit. But the scribe, then an up-and-coming employee of Marvel’s Writers Program, had the mantra that there was no such thing as grunt work when it came to writing. He was just thrilled someone was actually paying him to do it.
Nearly 15 years later, Pearson is now a go-to writer for Marvel, penning Thor: Ragnarok, Black Widow, Thunderbolts*, The Fantastic Four: First Steps and its potential Blade movie (which he declined to discuss). His films have earned more than $2.5 billion globally to date.
He has also dabbled in TV, working on Marvel and ABC’s short-lived but well-loved Captain America spinoff, Agent Carter.
“He was on set. He was in the editing room. He gave notes on visual effects,” says co-showrunner Tara Butters of Pearson. But perhaps his greatest superpower was connecting with actors. (Much of his career has been spent on set, writing lines on the fly.) “He’s always constantly trying to help them be the best version of the character,” says Butters. As evidence of the actors’ affection toward Pearson, Butters shared a birthday photo of Pearson after she and lead Hayley Atwell wrapped his entire office in wrapping paper.
Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige previously told THR, “He brings both humor, stakes and emotion, which you need in Marvel.”
Pearson has also dabbled into other universes, penning Paramount and Hasbro’s Transformers One, as well as Legendary’s Godzilla vs. Kong. Legendary film boss Mary Parent believes that he could one day become a director, should he choose.
“He deeply understands tone and even his most fantastical ideas are always born out of character and infused with humanity,” says Parent. “Some of my most memorable moments with Eric involve our shared love of Mike and Ike candy. One day he excitedly showed up with Root Beer flavored ones, which I didn’t know even existed, and for a while we became convinced they were our problem-solving superfood. We still laugh about it.”
The afternoon after the Hollywood premiere of Fantastic Four, Pearson met with THR to look back at growing up at Marvel, how the success of Thor: Ragnarok briefly set him down the wrong path, and to dive into the process of First Steps.
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Your first job in Hollywood was as a reader at DreamWorks. I imagine it’s a lot of bad scripts and a few good ones.
There was one that was good. It was called Untitled New York Thriller. It was the story of a cabbie down on his luck who picks up a hitman. It became Collateral. (Screenwriter) Stuart Beattie and I were on a panel recently and I told him. I found the coverage and sent it to him. I wrote it at 24, judging him and breaking it down. (Laughs.)
Was the DreamWorks gig enough to pay the bills or did you have other gigs?
They were paying a $100 a script. It was incredible. But it only lasted a year. They told me that I wasn’t the DreamWorks voice. From there, I was a pizza delivery guy. I worked at the Laemmle Sunset 5. I really started going into debt once I lost the DreamWorks job. By the time you’re 28 or 29, you’re like, “I don’t know how to do anything else.” You start looking at jobs to apply to, and you’re like, “No one will hire me. I only have this as an option.”
You wrote a spec that got you an agent, but you were thinking of leaving Hollywood and going back home to Massachusetts before eventually landing in the Marvel Writers Program, designed to bring young writers into the studio. How’d you get that job?
I got that job after a seven-month audition process, because Kevin just had to keep canceling the final pitch. I would drive down to Manhattan Beach, but maybe 10 minutes before, I would get a call: “So, Kevin had to cancel.” Because it was the lowest priority thing.
You finally get to pitch Kevin Feige in 2010 after seven months, and …
The only thing Kevin said during the whole pitch is, “How much more is left to this?” And I said, “We’re in the second to last scene.” And he goes, “Great.” (Laughs.) I then finished and I got the job later that day.
What was a typical day at Marvel like?
I was in at nine and left at seven — because I wanted to be there. I couldn’t believe I had an office with a phone. So, when [Marvel exec] Brad Winderbaum brought up the idea of doing One Shot (short films), he called me, and I was there to answer and be like, “Absolutely. I will do anything.” I was so thrilled that someone was paying me to write. And I realize now that there’s some stuff that’s considered grunt work, but I never considered it that.
What’s an example of “grunt work”?
Captain America 1. The movie was almost picture locked. They said, “We’re looking for a few ADR spots.” Like, “Do we have three quarters of a second behind Evans’ head to say, ‘Get back to base?’” They had this document of hopes and dreams. I watched it in five-minute segments for an entire week. So I said that I’m going to give them 10 alts for every single thing they’re asking for.
You got your first credits on the One Shot films, including Agent Carter. That Agent Carter short is your first real taste of the Marvel Method, in which pages are rewritten on set?
I remember being on set with my agent Doug Maclaren — and our director Lou D’Esposito was calling for me. That panic and excitement sets in as you run over to the director and lead actor, in this case, the powerhouse talent Hayley Atwell. They asked me for a line at the end of the fight sequence, and by some miracle, I delivered with my first pitch. That was the first time I was called on in the moment on a professional set to make a change with everyone waiting on me, and it was exhilarating.
Agent Carter star Hayley Atwell and co-showrunner Tara Butters wrapped up Eric Pearson’s office in wrapping paper for his birthday.
Tara Butters
Then you got hired on the Agent Carter TV show, where you got to do a bit of everything. What are you proud of from that?
It’s still my favorite job to this day. Every single day I was guaranteed to have at least one humongous laugh. … And I will forever be proud of my authorship over The Captain America Radio Hour, a sort of chauvinist-leaning radio program that was just a mosquito buzzing around Peggy’s ear for all of episode 102. Filming that, especially the sound effects people — who slapped a ham for punch sounds — was so fun.
You did uncredited work on projects such as Spider-Man: Homecoming and Ant-Man and the Wasp. What comes to mind from that era?
I was working early in the morning on Ant-Man, and then I looked up to see Paul Rudd in his full suit, except no helmet or gloves, with a coffee. Those suits look cool on camera; they don’t look cool in person. And so I just kind of laughed. We didn’t know each other very well, and then I immediately got scared. “Wow, I just laughed at No. 1 on the call sheet.” Paul stared at me, and then he pushed his gut out and slouched to make it look even funnier. It was just an amazing moment.
Then Ragnarok was your first time at the big show — credit on a movie script. How did it land on your desk?
My mother had invited all her friends over to sit and talk on the day before Christmas Eve and just chat and explain what my job was. I then got a text from Brad: “Hey, do you want a page 1, Thor 3, starting now?” And then I was like, “Hold on, ladies, I believe a job is happening in front of your eyes.”
It was such a time crunch that you had to start a week later, on New Year’s Day.
The next year at Comic-Con, Kevin told me, “I didn’t necessarily need to make this movie, if you hadn’t delivered that draft.” There was a date — by February 22.
So what’s that New Year’s Day like at Marvel to get started on this movie?
I remember taking it very easy on New Year’s Eve. I had watched [Taika Waititi’s 2010 movie] Boy. And I was like, “Who’s this guy that I’m meeting? What a weird choice.” And I remember meeting Taika in his Guns N’ Roses shirt. It probably took maybe a week before I figured out what was going on. If you looked at the previous Thor movies: “Shakespearean, takes itself seriously. Find some cosmic weird moments.” But it wasn’t until the Surtur opening that Taika and I really clicked.
Remind me, what was the Surtur opening?
We had so much exposition to get out, and I said, “I’m not doing a prologue. I demand that we don’t do a prologue.” I said, “What if we have Thor captured in chains? And right when Surtur’s getting to the point, Thor will be facing the other direction.” Taika was like, “Yeah, do that.” And I was like, “Okay! Now I get what we’re doing!” It takes a second to adjust sometimes.
When Ragnarok became such a critical and commercial success, did that change things for you? Did it suddenly feel like you were a hot writer?
Yeah, that changed it. And not all for the good. It definitely gassed me up a bit. I signed onto one job that I didn’t know how to do. I just thought I was good enough to be able to figure it out. It ended up being a disaster. I couldn’t figure it out. My personal life was not in a great place. And I remember offering to give the money back, realizing, “Oh, I failed.”
What got you back on track?
I told my agents, “I need to take three months to just not do this all the time.” And then Louis called me to do a week on Ant-Man and the Wasp‘s additional photography. Going back into Marvel and doing something I was very familiar with, it was just like, “Oh yeah, dude.”
You then took a break from Marvel to go over to Legendary for Godzilla vs. Kong. What was tough to crack on that one?
For Godzilla vs. Kong, the massive third-act set piece was the most difficult, but also most fun thing to crack. I find that when I am in one of those conference rooms at the studio or the production offices and we’re talking about action, it’s best to get up and walk through it. So it was fun to be with Adam Wingard and our producer Alex Garcia, sometimes even Mary Parent, the overall boss, and be like, “Okay, so I’m Kong, and you just blasted me with your tail, but I fell near my axe, so….”
Black Widow really seems to have a lasting impact on you, particularly your relationships with the actors like Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh and David Harbour. You did rehearsals with them, which in turn informed your script. What else stood out from that time?
Our reshoots were in January of 2020. We think OT Fagbenle (who played Natasha’s ally Mason) had COVID. He and I are still pals. He said, “I’ve never missed work in 20 years. I couldn’t walk to the bathroom without my heart racing.” No one knew what COVID was then, but he couldn’t be there. So I got to read his lines with Scarlett. And I remember improving a little thing to try and trip her up, and she gave me this look, like, “You know I could kill you. Not physically kill you, but I could embarrass you with my talent. And I’m choosing not to because I’m your friend.” I cherish that memory.
Black Widow felt in some ways like a sure thing, in that it starred an Avenger who’s one of the biggest movie stars in the world. But Thunderbolts* was Marvel’s B-team, and it ended up being a critically acclaimed movie for them.
Every other Marvel project, I’ve come in later. So Thunderbolts* will always probably be my favorite, because it was nothing, and then I made it into something. There was a failed version that I tried to do, which was too close to Suicide Squad. I was was like, “That’s the wrong approach. It’s got to be the exact opposite. They’re actually hired to murder each other, and they figure that out. And through a series of team building exercises, they become a team.”
Director Jake Schreier and you had a friendly disagreement over how to talk about the climax, in which the team saves Bob by embracing him. You call it a “group hug,” but he won’t refer to it as that.
It absolutely is a group hug! (Laughs.) I think I wrote a line that was a comment on it: “Did we just save the world with a group hug?” In retrospect, referencing it makes it terrible, and he’s totally right about that. It probably soured him. And again, I’m not speaking for him in any way. On the page, it probably got a laugh, but then if you applied it to the actual movie, it would’ve been like, “Ew.” It would give you the ick.
[The following contains spoilers for The Fantastic Four: First Steps.]
It took a village to write Fantastic Four: First Steps, as you’re one of five credited writers. One thing you did when you came aboard was move the birth of Franklin Richards to the space escape. What was the thinking there?
In the drafts before, they had the baby in the first act. We moved it to the middle of all of that action. I was worried it was going to feel like too much when it first happened. All the elements — escaping Galactus, the Surfer is after them., they’ve also got to do this neutron star whip-around thing. That’s hard to do. Plus, she’s in labor whole time. I was worried that it was going to take away [from the birth], but it all kind of came together perfectly.
How much more Mole Man was talked about that didn’t make it into the movie?
There’s other scenes of Mole Man. There was another scene with Sue where she goes down and talks to him about diplomacy, which was super fun and super funny. Movies are a tough stew. Sometimes you’ve got a great scene, and it’s just not the right flavor for the stew. But I was like, “We can’t go back down there again. Let him come into Reed’s place and touch everything.” That was literally my pitch: “I want Mole Man to come in.” I probably would’ve gone way too far if I was directing it. I wanted him touching every device like Baby Huey in Roger Rabbit, just going around messing with everything.
There was a previous draft in which the final fight takes place in space. How did it move to Earth?
There wasn’t the scale. I want to see him against the Empire State building. I want to see the Mets’ Stadium. I want to see him kicking buses and stuff like that. So I was like, “Let’s bring him down here.” Then it became obvious that we want Reed and Sue there to have some conflict. And the idea of using their child as bait is logical. Yes, it’s also super fucked up. This family has taken on the burden and responsibility of protecting the entire planet and now their only option is to do something that is personally very harmful.
And you got to have them fight Galactus, to no avail.
I don’t know if it made you uncomfortable, the stretch [of Reed Richards]. [Director] Matt [Shakman] wasn’t allergic to stretching, but he was like, “I want to know my rules for stretching and I don’t want it to be too crazy cartoony. I want it to be within the physiology of the human body.” So I was like, “Well, if you want that, then let’s test the limits.” And it felt like [Reed Richards actor] Pedro [Pascal]’s ribcage was coming apart. You want the moments where it feels like they’re totally screwed and they’re going to lose.
Was there anything else that shifted from your drafts to the screen?
In my drafts, there’s a lot more Johnny-Surfer flirtation, or one-way flirtation. It was all him, but endearing. And it’s such an interesting thing when you put the cuts together. There’s so much less of it. Perhaps that’s all you needed for her to be touched by his affection for her and how far he was going to go to save the planet. That emotional gamut is a cool thing. You can’t solve everything with science.
The Johnny/Shalla-Bal language stuff was something you helped crack too.
Yeah. We talked about her a little bit like Spock, too. To save everyone she loved, she’s locked into this emotionless way. She’s physically undefeatable. Let’s emotionally compromise her and give all the messages from her home planet and then contrast that with all the other people who’ve been crying out for mercy. Thank God for Julia Garner. Her scream of a million planets is so awesome.
I remember the last version that I did, she went away and had her moment of, “I’m not right for this anymore.” And Johnny comes and talks to her. They did it in space in the final movie, but I remember always thinking it should be like Tahiti or something where she’s just actually sitting on the surfboard, like a surfer. We talked about her planet as mostly being a water planet. And just to have her be like, “Yeah, this kind of reminds me of home in a way.” I mean, I might’ve just been trying to add on too many layers of connection to Earth or to give her more of an excuse to want to come in and save the day at the end.
As we close out, will there be more Transformers in your future?
I’m not sure what their plans are for it. All I know is that I had a lot of fun helping out Steven Caple Jr. in post on Rise of the Beasts, and I had a total blast doing Transformers One with Josh Cooley. And honestly? After the freedom that animation provided for telling a Transformers story, it might be hard for me to reframe my mind for live action.
And finally, do you still recognize that young guy in yourself who was just eager to be around to answer his phone at Marvel headquarters?
Hell yeah I do. I’m still both scared and excited, just like he was. I’m still so very excited to do this job and simultaneously petrified of screwing up.
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