Nomadland may be one of the year's most critically acclaimed indies, but it's not immune to the far-reaching grasp of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Chloe Zhao's wondrous and melancholic awards frontrunner features its own shoutout to the MCU when star Frances McDormand wanders past a single-screen movie theater in an unnamed American town showing a major MCU release.

While details on The Eternals have remained shrouded in secrecy, it's no stretch to imagine that director Zhao's plate was full from the moment she was hired. But a meeting with Frances McDormand on the eve of the 2018 Independent Spirit Awards, where McDormand pitched Zhao on the book on which Nomadland is based, proved persuasive, and by the next day, a contract was already drawn up. That fall, McDormand and Zhao embarked on a four-month shoot that mirrored Fern's journey, living out of vans, grabbing footage on the fly, and holding casting meetings in the parking lot of a Planet Fitness. The result is a mesmerizingly powerful film, one whose "quick and dirty" production is nowhere to be found in Zhao's vast epic about life, death, and the open road. It feels like an instantly timeless classic, and it amps up anticipation for what the filmmaker might do with a budget of 200 million and a cast including Harry Styles, Angelina Jolie, and a recently-more-muscular Kumail Nanjiani.

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Zhao was tapped by Marvel in 2018 after the success of her film The Rider, a slow-burn drama about an injured cowboy looking for purpose. It's not the first time an up-and-coming indie darling has been scooped by the studio; Thor Ragnarok's Taika Waititi and Black Panther's Ryan Coogler have come before. But neither of them managed what Zhao has accomplished, shooting an entire other film while prepping to take on the biggest studio franchise in the world. And perhaps as a nod to her forthcoming acceptance into the MCU, the cinema marquee shown features the title of The Avengers with Fern walking past and staring at the poster.

The Avengers group shot at the end of the first movie

The marquee reference could be perceived as a dig; Fern is a working-class woman pushed out of her hometown, and here she is dwarfed by the film that birthed the cinematic universe, ensuring superheroes dominated the box office for the next decade and widening the gap between independent and tentpole filmmaking until mid-budget studio fare became virtually extinct. But writer-director-editor Zhao is a self-professed Marvel fan. And, crucially, Zhao was hired in 2018 to direct The EternalsSo unless she's being slyly subversive, chances are this moment is actually somewhat of a thesis statement for her: there's room in this world for both a superhero flick and Nomadland; in fact, they can come from the same filmmaker.

The shadow of that colossal mega-hit contrasts wildly with the world and atmosphere of Nomadland, which eschews gravity-defying heroes in floating cities for lost souls in sparse landscapes. McDormand's character, Fern, has lost her husband and been displaced from her hometown of Empire, Nevada, after the closure of its sheetrock factory. With nothing else to lose, she hits the road in her van, embarking on a journey through the American West that brings her in contact with other wanderers who have embraced the nomadic lifestyle after the recession of 2007-2008. Fern's multi-year odyssey begins in 2011, which puts her on a direct path to come face-to-face with the highest-grossing film of 2012, The Avengers.

Whatever the results, with Disney owning Marvel and acquiring Searchlight Pictures, the distributors of Nomadland, Zhao looks likely to be giving the Mouse House a pretty stellar 2021, with a potential Best Picture win in April and the (currently-slated) release of The Eternals in November. Such superhuman feats link Zhao as much with Iron Man as they do with the restless spirit of McDormand's Fern, who hits the road and forges her own path even as she eyes up that Avengers marquee.

Next: Every Marvel Cinematic Universe Movie, Ranked Worst To Best