Angelina Jolie fronts magazine cover in Eternals costume

Angelina Jolie has posed in full costume for the upcoming Marvel epic Eternals, revealing how her own “unconventional family” made her want to star in the blockbuster.

Fans have been given a complete look at Angelina Jolie in Marvel’s upcoming blockbuster, Eternals.

As Marvel paves a post-Avengers reign, the Oscar-winning actress will play Thena in the big-budget film centred on a group of immortal aliens who have lived on earth for 7000 years secretly protecting humanity from their opposite forces, the Deviants.

Jolie, 46, plays a fierce warrior Eternal who can form any weapon out of cosmic energy.

Directed by Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao, Eternals also stars Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Salma Hayek, Brian Tyree Henry and Lauren Ridloff.

It will feature Marvel’s first major gay character as well as a deaf character, played by deaf actor Ridloff, and will hit theatres on November 5.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly about her decision to join the movie, Jolie, a mother-of-six, said her own “unconventional family” helped her relate to the story.

“I just wanted to be a part of this family,” she told the publication.

“I have a slightly unconventional family myself, so it felt familiar.”

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Angelina Jolie in character for Eternals on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Picture: EW

Jolie shares six children, three of whom are adopted, with her ex Brad Pitt, 57, whom she is currently involved in a custody battle with.

She said she appreciated Zhao’s vision to cast actors who shared parallels with the characters.

“I don’t think we realised that until we really got there,” Jolie told EW.

“It really felt like she was pulling out of us something that was more personal, from a deeper side of ourselves.

“She wasn’t looking to put something on top of us, like a character. She was looking for us to reveal ourselves as the character.”

Who are the Eternals?

Marvel's Eternals will be released on November 5.

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The Eternals are an ancient race also known as the Celestials. They’re powerful entities who are thought to be connected to the infinity stones (you know, those pesky things that Thanos used to kill off half the universe).

In Guardians of the Galaxy, the Collector claims that the stones were singularities that survived the creation of the universe.

The Collector once showed the Guardians a recording of a Celestial using the Power Stone to judge civilisations many years ago.

In Avengers: Endgame, Nebula said that the Soul Stone was on Vormir, which she called “the centre of Celestial civilisation”, so it’s obvious the Celestials have a connection to the stones.

Speaking at San Diego Comic-Con 2019, actor Kumail Nanjiani discussed the Eternals’ origin. “We were sent to Earth thousands of years ago to protect Earth from these monsters, the Deviants,” he explained.

Thanos himself has had links to the Eternals in the comics, as he was born in the Eternal colony of Titan.

MCU fans are hoping that all these connections will mean Eternals will give them a look at Thanos’ past.