Summary
- Despite having a talented cast and an exciting storyline, Marvel’s Eternals received bad reviews from critics, affecting its box office performance.
- Star Kumail Nanjiani believes there were external factors that led to the negative reviews and feels it was unfair to him and his co-stars.
- While there has been no official confirmation, there are rumors that a sequel to Eternals could be in the works, but its future in the MCU remains uncertain.
Marvel’s Eternals hit cinemas in 2021, but did not get quite the reception Marvel Studios hoped for. Despite boasting a cast of past and future Oscar nominees, an intergalactic storyline and a bold and diverse new superhero group, the movie fell completely flat with critics. Despite gaining a much more favorable rating from audiences, the bad reviews did a lot of harm to the film’s box office performance as cinemas emerged from the Covid pandemic. However, according to star Kumail Nanjiani, the critical mauling of the movie was not down to its quality.
Speaking with Michael Rosenbaum on the Inside of You podcast, Nanjiani explained how he took the reviews hard, but believes there was some “weird soup” that led to the movie being critically panned. He said:
The reviews were really bad. I was too aware [of the bad reviews], I was reading every review, I was checking too much, because this thing had become too much in my head. This was also right after the pandemic, so we are coming out after this crazy thing, and I’m like, “This is going to be the big coming out party.” I think there was some weird soup in the atmosphere for why that movie got slammed so much, and I think a lot of it doesn’t have to do with the actual quality of the movie. It was really, really hard, and it’s unfair to me, and it’s unfair to Emily, I can’t approach my work this way anymore, some sh-t’s gotta change.
Related 10 Reasons Why Eternals Is the MCU’s Most Underrated Movie In a world where Disney is plagued by superhero fatigue, Eternals could provide a roadmap for how to proceed.
Will Eternals 2 Still Happen?
Disney
The arrival of Eternals signaled the beginning of one of the most challenging times in the history of the MCU. After seeing every movie of the Infinity Saga become a huge financial success, the pandemic caused a number of problems for Marvel Studios, forcing them to release Black Widow to Disney+ Premium, and leading to subsequent movies failing to attract anything like the $1 billion audiences it had become accustomed to.
Of course, Eternals is part of a much larger narrative canvas, and that means that the movie left a number of story threads hanging loose to be picked up at a later time. This included teases for the arrival of Blade, Black Knight and Harry Style’s Starfox, as well as the cliffhanger ending of the movie itself.
Release Date November 5, 2021
Runtime 2hr 36min
Writers Matthew K. Firpo , Ryan Firpo , Jack Kirby
Format Theatrical
Studio Marvel Studios
Tagline In the beginning…
Franchise Marvel
So far there has been no official word on whether Eternals 2 will happen, but there has been plenty of rumors and speculation that Marvel Studios are working on the sequel. However, it is now four years since Eternals debuted in cinemas and there have been very few mentions of anything from that movie in the MCU’s story. That will reportedly change with the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World, but beyond that, the future of the group seems to be very much up in the air like a lot of other upcoming TV shows and movies within the franchise.
Having put so much faith into Eternals, it is hard to imagine that Kevin Feige will be intending on abandoning the continuation of their story, but whether it takes the form originally intended is something that could well have a few tweaks to come before we see them back on screen in any meaningful capacity.
Eternals is available with the rest of the MCU’s offerings on Disney+.
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