Kumail Nanjiani Reveals His ‘Eternals’ Future That Might’ve Been

It’s no secret the MCU entered the 2020s with some growing pains. A pandemic will try this to you, ditto a spottier output, and one of many extra divisive initiatives was Eternals. On the time, it appeared Marvel had some plans for the immortal beings, and because of Kumail Nanjiani, we now know what that will’ve regarded like.

In a current episode of Mike Birbiglia’s Working It Out podcast, the one-time Kingo revealed he signed on considering he’d be a longterm MCU participant and alternate between that and non-blockbuster work. In keeping with him, Marvel Studios had him join “for all these items. I signed on for six films, a online game, [and] a theme park journey. I used to be like, ‘That is gonna be my job for the following 10 years.’” These plans, which doubtless additionally utilized to costars like Angelina Jolie and Brian Tyree Henry (and might be customary throughout all MCU actors), seem to have fallen by way of, for the reason that Eternals have been MIA for practically 4 years and Marvel’s not mentioned a lot about them since. And the one different time they’ve been introduced up was a season three episode of What If…? that noticed Nanjiani voice an alternate model of Kingo.

Breaking down the totally different elements of Nanjiani’s assertion, his point out of six movies doubtless applies to not less than two Eternals sequels and three visitor appearances in different characters’ films. The theme park journey in all probability pertains to his likeness, and the online game is just a little trickier to find out. Nanjiani’s finished voice work for video video games earlier than, so it could possibly be he would’ve performed Kingo throughout one in all Marvel’s cellular titles like Strike Force, and even Fortnite, since each have seen Ryan Reynolds reprise his position as Deadpool. (Hell, in case you wanna actually get on the market, possibly they thought he’d be such a fan-favorite to land a spot in Marvel Rivals.)

Regardless, Nanjiani nonetheless has pleasure in Eternals, even whereas acknowledging its “actually dangerous evaluations” affected him a lot he went to remedy, the place he realized “an excessive amount of of my shallowness was tied up in different folks’s response to my work.” Given Marvel’s current strikes prior to now 12 months, although, possibly the studio will carry Kingo and his fellow Eternals again for one thing within the subsequent few years.

Need extra io9 information? Take a look at when to anticipate the newest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on film and TV, and every thing you have to find out about the way forward for Doctor Who.