The Eternaut (TV series)

The Eternaut (Spanish: El Eternauta) is an upcoming Argentine television series created by Bruno Stagnaro, based on the comic of the same name by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López. Produced by Netflix and K&S Films, the series centers around a group of survivors of a deadly snowfall powered by an alien invasion.
"One summer's night in Buenos Aires, a mysterious deadly snowfall wipes out most of the population and leaves thousands stranded. Juan Salvo and his friends embark on a desperate struggle for survival. Everything changes when they discover that the toxic snowstorm is only the first attack by a foreign army invading Earth. The only way to stay alive is to join together and fight. No one will survive on their own."
In 1968, advertisement production company Gil & Bertolini acquired the rights to The Eternaut to make an animated television series, to be presented at the First World Comic Book Biennial. Each episode would be introduced by Oesterheld himself, and the animation would be rotoscoped, a very expensive technique at the time. The project was cancelled after the production of a 24-minute pilot.
For the following twenty years, financial and copyrights problems prevented different adaptations of The Eternaut for film and television. Argentine directors such as Fernando "Pino" Solanas and Gustavo Mosquera expressed their interest on adapting the material, as did Adolfo Aristarain. At the time, Aristarain said that the only way to produce the film would be in English, given it would cost at least US$10–15 million and American actors would be conditional to get the necessary funds from American production companies, but "that wouldn't be the correct way" because he considered Argentine culture an integral part of The Eternaut.
In 1995, there was a miniseries project led by an important TV network from Buenos Aires, with special effects in charge of computer animation company Aicon. A preliminary contract had been signed with a big Hollywood studio. In 2007, an Italian production company worked on an adaptation of The Eternaut, in agreement with the Oesterheld's widow and grandsons. It entered negotiations with Argentine studios and the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA) for a possible co-production. In 2008, director Lucrecia Martel was summoned for a film adaptation of The Eternaut. She worked on the script for a year and a half, which would take place in the present day, but the Oesterheld family considered it strayed too far from the source material, the producers stepped down and the project went stagnant. In 2018, Spanish filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia expressed interest in making an adaptation, with actor Ricardo Darín on board to star in the project.
Director Bruno Stagnaro had always liked the source material and he always felt very close to it, citing its "definite and precise anchoring in [Argentina's] space" as an influence for his early projects Pizza, Beer, and Cigarettes (1998) and Okupas (2000). In 2003, he began writing his own version of the story set in a present-day post-apocalyptic Buenos Aires, completing the script of the first episode and doing tests with Okupas star Rodrigo de la Serna at Ideas del Sur production company. However, the project was dropped over budget concerns.
In 2018, Stagnaro met with producers Matías Mosteirín and Leticia Cristi of K&S Films and told them about his project. They were already interested in adapting The Eternaut as a series. Martín Oesterheld —the author's grandson– and Laura Bruno, who own the rights for the original comic book, established two basic conditions for the project: to be set in Buenos Aires and spoken in Spanish.
Stagnaro highlighted the difficulty of adapting the story from a serialized comic book, with "absolutely ephemeral" character arcs and "little long-term construction", to a TV series with hour-long episodes. He wanted to preserve the "precarity" and atada con alambre (transl. patched-up) quality from the Eternaut comic book that represented Argentine culture, which he considered as "what we can contribute to global science fiction". Martín Oesterheld stated that the series aimed to be faithful to his grandfather's vision, where "no one saves themselves" and there is a "collective hero", a term the author included in his original prologue for the comic book.
The decision to set the series in present day was in line with the spirit of the original work, Stagnaro explained, as "[Oesterheld] plays a lot with it being contemporary to the reader." The point was for the city to be "a living presence in the story" and for the audience to recognize the space the characters inhabit as a parallel version of their own world.
In February 2020, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings announced they would produce a series adaptation of The Eternaut, directed by Bruno Stagnaro with filmmaker Martín Oesterheld as a consultant. Héctor Oesterherld's heirs required the series to be filmed in Buenos Aires and spoken in Spanish. The series was set to be released between late 2021 and early 2022.
In August 2021, Netflix Vice President for Latin American Content Francisco Ramos assured that the project was still moving forward, but that the series wouldn't be released before 2023 due to complications related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ramos detailed the development of the screenplay as well as the "technological and technical design" of the series, which he described as "one of the most ambitious Latin American projects in Spanish ever made". In March 2025, Ramos reiterated that he considered The Eternaut would be "a turning point for the film industry in Argentina" when it comes to "technological advances, audacity, entertainment and film language".
In February 2023, The Eternaut was one of the projects selected for the BA Cash Rebate program for international productions filming in Buenos Aires, receiving up to 20% of expenses. In March, Ricardo Darín was revealed to be in negotiations to star in the series, and he confirmed his involvement in April. Darín also said the series would be "an updated version" with a broader reach than local audiences. Darín's casting was controversial due to the age difference between him and his character in the comics. Initially, Stagnaro doubted casting 68-year-old Darín as a character in his thirties due to the physicality required for the role. However, that allowed for the possibility to justify the character's knowledge of guns, uncommon in Argentina, as well as his habit of playing Truco with friends, in order for the character to be believable in the updated setting of the story.
María Battaglia and Julián Romera were the series's art directors. Battaglia explained that the snow in Buenos Aires was inspired by "high mountain documentaries, norweigan painteras and various Buenos Aires photographers" for realism. They considered the original comic book to be the bible for the show, consulting it to address artistic and aesthetic concerns.
Filming began in Buenos Aires in May 2023. Gastón Girod served as director of photography. The cast was announced to include Carla Peterson, César Troncoso, Andrea Pietra, Ariel Staltari, Marcelo Subiotto, Claudio Martínez Bel, Orianna Cárdenas, and Mora Fisz. In June 2023, scenes were shot at the Avenida General Paz, the limit between Vicente López Partido and Buenos Aires neighborhoods Núñez and Saavedra. The sets featured snow, armed soldiers, and old cars. Further filming at Saavedra took place in October 2023. Over 35 locations were used, which over 25 stages created through virtual production.
In November 2023, it was reported that filming was delayed due to Darín's busy schedule. Shooting continued with the rest of the cast, while Peterson had already finished filming her scenes. Filming concluded in December 2023.
Alejandro Brodersohn and Alejandro Parysow served as editors and Martín Grignaschi was the sound designer, with Pablo Accame and Ignacio Pol as VFX supervisors. Stagnaro considered technological development was one of the main reasons the project was possible. He thought it was crucial to have the autonomy to "design and then own" the digital environment instead of it "coming already pre-designed from abroad", as the original work had "such deep roots" in Argentina that only locals could construct it. Vast areas of Buenos Aires were digitally scanned and translated into an Unreal Engine virtual reality system, then sent to foreign studios to "complement the work".
Federico Jusid composed the score for The Eternaut.
The series is set to be released on 30 April 2025, and it will consist of six episodes.