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 do 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 due to Kumail Nanjiani, we now know what that might’ve seemed like.

In a latest 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 things. I signed on for six motion pictures, a online game, [and] a theme park trip. I used to be like, ‘That is gonna be my job for the subsequent 10 years.’” These plans, which seemingly additionally utilized to costars like Angelina Jolie and Brian Tyree Henry (and might be commonplace throughout all MCU actors), seem to have fallen by, because the 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 completely different components of Nanjiani’s assertion, his point out of six movies seemingly applies to at the least two Eternals sequels and three visitor appearances in different characters’ motion pictures. The theme park trip in all probability pertains to his likeness, and the online game is just a little trickier to find out. Nanjiani’s executed voice work for video video games earlier than, so it may very well be he would’ve performed Kingo throughout one in all Marvel’s cell titles like Strike Force, and even Fortnite, since each have seen Ryan Reynolds reprise his position as Deadpool. (Hell, for those who wanna actually get on the market, perhaps 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 opinions” affected him a lot he went to remedy, the place he realized “an excessive amount of of my vanity was tied up in different folks’s response to my work.” Given Marvel’s latest strikes prior to now 12 months, although, perhaps 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 most recent Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on film and TV, and every part it is advisable to learn about the way forward for Doctor Who.