In 2021, Marvel Studios attempted to expand the reach of the MCU with an adaptation of Eternals, a lesser-known group of immortal heroes. Kumail Nanjiani was cast as Kingo alongside Angelina Jolie, Gemma Chan, Salma Hayek, Barry Keoghan, and more. Eternals didn’t earn enough to merit a sequel, and Nanjiani has revealed that he had a deal for a video game and a theme park attraction that never came to pass.
“I signed on for six movies, you know,” said Nanjiani during his appearance on Mike Birbiglia’s Working It Out podcast. “I signed on for a video game. I signed on for a theme park ride. They make you sign up for all this stuff … And so you’re like, ‘Oh, this is the next 10 years of my life, so I’ll be doing Marvel movies every year, and then in-between I’ll do like my own little things, whatever I want to do.’ And then none of that happened.”
That deal appears to have been predicated on Eternals being a hit like Guardians of the Galaxy before it, which did get licensed out for video games and theme park rides. Marvel hasn’t had a lot of video games based directly on the MCU movies in the last two decades, but the studio apparently kept the possibility open for Eternals.
Nanjiani previously disclosed that he went to therapy after Eternals was greeted with bad reviews, but he told Birbiglia that the experience taught him that too much of his self esteem was tied up to other people’s reactions to his work.
Eternals had $402.1 million worldwide, which is a threshold that Marvel Studios has had trouble reaching this year. Regardless, the only Marvel movie to pick up on some of the threads introduced in Eternals was Captain America: Brave New World.
Nanjiani also noted that he’s proud of Eternals, and his experience with it has given him material for his latest standup comedy set.