Watching ETERNALS at The El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood – Costumes, Food and Merch!

While in LA this week for job meetings, I made it a point to find time to visit one of my favorite places on the planet to watch a movie: The El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood. I couldn’t resist watching ETERNALS for a second time. The entire block high above Hollywood Blvd. was decked out to welcome the MCU’s newest additions into the ever-expanding universe.

ETERNALS is already one of my favorite MCU films. I’ve long loved cosmic and specifically the Celestial stories in Marvel. The Fantastic Four sort of introduced me to this level of “hero”. And I still can’t wait for that film. Still I loved the job that Chloe Zhao did with these characters and their story, both in visual and in narrative, and how different and iconic it felt from the usual MCU film. So a second viewing was a must.

Now not only is the El Cap a great audio/visual experience, but there are amazing extras that usually happen at every screening. Usually there’s an organist playing fantastic classic Disney music. I went to see RON’S GONE WRONG there last month and he was on fire. Check him out:

This time for ETERNALS there was instead a montage of great orchestral scores from previous MCU films that played which got me totally psyched up for my second watch of ETERNALS. In addition, the El Cap usually puts some kind of display together from the current film.

For the ETERNALS, they had the entire team’s suits on display. This was so cool for a couple of reasons: first Chloe Zhao has been adamant about the use of practical sets and costumes so these aren’t props but actual screen-word costumes by all of the ETERNAL actors. You could really get a feel for how big each actor was and what a beautiful job the costume department did in executing such rugged yet beautiful costumes for each of the ETERNAL team members. And second there were 10 of them so there was a lot to see!

Some of the detailing on the costumes was also incredible to see up close. It was really a special experience for superfans of the film like myself. Check out some of the hieroglyphics on Sersi and Sprite’s suits.

The projection was perfect, the sound was unmatched (the El Cap features Dolby projection and sound) but the layout is the old-school movie house type seats – no stadium seating, no recliners – so its a real old school throwback feel that gives you a maximum amount of audience interaction and keeps your attention trained on the screen and not on the waitress or food platter in front of you. Plus you really do feel like you’re in the “Golden Age” of Hollywood while in one of the classic movie palaces of Hollywood.

Speaking of food, if you are a D23 member (I am) just flash your card and you get a free popcorn and soda and most showings. And El Capitan is one of the only places you can get a nice and delicious Mickey Pretzel outside of Disney Parks. And again, that’s because Disney owns El Capitan.

In addition to owning the El Cap, Disney also co-owns the store next door – the Disney Ghiradelli Soda Fountain and Chocolate Shop. You can get some park-level Disney ice cream treats here. See the menu below.

I’ve wanted to try the Magical Sundae (with the Mickey ears) for a while but I never time my visits well. I’m usually full from my popcorn, soda and Mickey pretzel. I need to carve out some time so I can truly experience the sundae in all its glory and not just a couple bites or a pic for instagram.

The space is also home to one of the last Disney Stores around. And just looking around I got bummed at how the Disney Stores have pretty much gone extinct over the last year. It was so cool to see park merch (from ornaments to pins) here and made me truly regret how I just took the Disney Store at my local mall for granted.

While there I took the opportunity to buy an Eternals t-shirt (you can buy this on ShopDisney but it’s so much fun to buy things in person) and also pick up one of the ETERNALS shopping bags that you cannot buy on shopdisney.com. They actually had all kinds of cool merch including action figures and backpacks – which were really hard to resist.

So yeah that wraps up my trip to the El Cap to watch ETERNALS. Great costumes, great food and even some cool merch to go with it all!