It’s no secret the MCU entered the 2020s with some growing pains. A pandemic will do that to you, ditto a spottier output, and one of the more divisive projects was Eternals. At the time, it seemed Marvel had some plans for the immortal beings, and thanks to Kumail Nanjiani, we now know what that would’ve looked like.
In a recent episode of Mike Birbiglia’s Working It Out podcast, the one-time Kingo revealed he signed on thinking he’d be a longterm MCU player and alternate between that and non-blockbuster work. According to him, Marvel Studios had him sign up “for all this stuff. I signed on for six movies, a video game, [and] a theme park ride. I was like, ‘This is gonna be my job for the next 10 years.’” Those plans, which likely also applied to costars like Angelina Jolie and Brian Tyree Henry (and is probably standard across all MCU actors), appear to have fallen through, since the Eternals have been MIA for nearly four years and Marvel’s not said much about them since. And the only other time they’ve been brought up was a season three episode of What If…? that saw Nanjiani voice an alternate version of Kingo.
Breaking down the different parts of Nanjiani’s statement, his mention of six films likely applies to at least two Eternals sequels and three guest appearances in other characters’ movies. The theme park ride probably relates to his likeness, and the video game is a little trickier to determine. Nanjiani’s done voice work for video games before, so it could be he would’ve played Kingo across one of Marvel’s mobile titles like Strike Force, or even Fortnite, since both have seen Ryan Reynolds reprise his role as Deadpool. (Hell, if you wanna really get out there, maybe they thought he’d be such a fan-favorite to land a spot in Marvel Rivals.)
Regardless, Nanjiani still has pride in Eternals, even while acknowledging its “really bad reviews” affected him so much he went to therapy, where he realized “too much of my self-esteem was tied up in other people’s reaction to my work.” Given Marvel’s recent moves in the past year, though, maybe the studio will bring Kingo and his fellow Eternals back for something in the next few years.
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