When Marvel Studios released Eternals in late 2021, the company thought it was launching the next Avengers-level franchise. According to Variety, Kumail Nanjiani, one of the “stars” of Eternals, had signed on for an ambitious six-picture deal across a decade, complete with appearances in a video game and even a planned theme-park attraction.
Marvel believed this was the foundation of a bold new era. They were oh-so-very wrong.
Kumail Nanjiani says that he signed on for six Marvel movies when he was cast as the superhero Kingo in Marvel’s “Eternals.”
“It got really bad reviews and it didn’t do that well. It shattered me too much. That’s when I was like, ‘Oh I need to go to therapy to figure this… pic.twitter.com/nXkCFrCGjP
— Variety (@Variety) August 24, 2025
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Instead, Eternals has gone down in history as Marvel’s first high-profile misfire — the movie that first cracked the studio’s invincible reputation. And the story of Marvel and Kumail Nanjiani illustrates just how much the Disney-owned studio miscalculated.
Marvel’s Overconfidence
Marvel pulled out all the stops for Eternals. It hired Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao, assembled a sprawling cast featuring Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Gemma Chan, and Nanjiani, along with Kumail Nanjiani and poured nearly $236 million into the budget. Disney marketed the film as a prestige event, positioning it as the MCU’s next great saga.
(L-R): Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Sersi (Gemma Chan) and Sprite (Lia McHugh) in Marvel Studios‘ ETERNALS. Photo by Sophie Mutevelian. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
Behind the scenes, actors were told they were entering something long-term. For Kumail Nanjiani, that meant a ten-year Marvel commitment and six separate projects. But Marvel’s ambitions were built on a foundation that couldn’t support the weight.
The Representation Hype
From the very beginning, Eternals was sold less as a superhero adventure and more as a cultural milestone. Cast and crew spoke about the film as if it were a historic social achievement rather than entertainment.
Haaz Sleiman, who played the husband of Brian Tyree Henry’s Phastos, made headlines when he called the film “life-saving.”
“Beyond a dream come true, it’s life-saving,” he said. “I wish I had that when I was a kid … Can you imagine how many lives this is going to be saving?”
(L-R): Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Gilgamesh (Don Lee), Thena (Angelina Jolie), Ikaris (Richard Madden), Ajak (Salma Hayek), Sersi (Gemma Chan), Sprite (Lia McHugh), Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) and Druig (Barry Keoghan) in Marvel Studios’ ETERNALS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
Kumail Nanjiani added his own voice to the chorus, tweeting after the movie’s release, “Looks like we’re upsetting the right people.” This was due to so-called conservative outrage at the film’s progressive push. Just after Nanjiani made this claim, the film collapsed when all the “right people” didn’t buy a ticket.
The implication was clear: Eternals wasn’t just a movie — it was a statement. Hollywood media outlets happily echoed this message, praising its diverse cast and inclusion milestones. But when audiences actually saw the film, few shared the same enthusiasm.
From Game-Changer to Rotten Tomatoes First
All the rhetoric in the world couldn’t save the final product. Critics were divided, and for the first time in Marvel history, an MCU movie landed a “rotten” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It currently sits at just 47%. Metacritic wasn’t much kinder, with a middling score of 52/100. On Criticless, the movie has a 28% Bogus rating.
Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) in Marvel Studios’ ETERNALS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2021 Marvel Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Reviews described the film as “ambitious but muddled.” The large ensemble made it difficult to connect with any one character. The pacing dragged. The story felt disconnected from the MCU at large. What was supposed to be a revolutionary new chapter came across as bloated and directionless.
Even Vanity Fair — normally friendly to Marvel — said flatly: “There’s no life in Chloe Zhao’s Eternals.”
The Box Office Reality
Financially, Eternals wasn’t a total disaster — but it was nowhere near a success. The film grossed $402.1 million worldwide. On paper, that looks sizable. But when you subtract marketing costs from a $236 million production budget, analysts widely agreed Disney likely lost money.
(L-R): Karun (Harish Patel), Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Sprite (Lia McHugh), Sersi (Gemma Chan), Ikaris (Richard Madden), Thena (Angelina Jolie), Gilgamesh (Don Lee) in Marvel Studios’ ETERNALS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
Compare that to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which released just months earlier and outperformed expectations. Or Spider-Man: No Way Home, which released weeks later and became a box office juggernaut. Audiences clearly hadn’t abandoned Marvel (yet…that would come soon though) — they just didn’t connect with Eternals.
For a studio that had come to expect billion-dollar hits, this was a humiliation.
The Marvel Fallout for Kumail Nanjiani
For Kumail Nanjiani, Eternals wasn’t just another acting gig. He had staked a huge part of his career on Kingo. After all, a six-film Marvel contract usually guarantees years of steady work and cultural visibility.
Instead, he found himself tied to Marvel’s first critical flop. In candid interviews, Nanjiani admitted the backlash “completely crushed” him. Appearing on Mike Birbiglia’s podcast, he revealed he sought therapy to deal with the disappointment.
Kumail Nanjiani says he started going to therapy over the bad reviews for #Eternals
“I was too aware of it … I was reading every review … I worked so hard for it” pic.twitter.com/YlTAwSGVSZ
— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) February 7, 2024
“I had waited a year and a half … thinking, ‘When this comes out, everything changes,’” he said. “But then it came out, got bad reviews, and bombed. I realized I needed therapy to deal with it.”
Marvel, meanwhile, moved on. The studio has barely mentioned the Eternals characters since 2021, and the grand plans for sequels, spinoffs, and crossovers were quietly shelved. Kumail Nanjiani went from Marvel headliner to Marvel afterthought almost overnight.
The Bigger Picture: Marvel’s Decline
In hindsight, Eternals may have been the canary in the coal mine. For over a decade, Marvel could do no wrong. But with Eternals, cracks started to show. Audiences weren’t automatically on board. Critics weren’t guaranteed to rave.
(L-R): Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, and Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo by Laura Radford. © 2023 MARVEL.
The same problems resurfaced in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels, which underperformed badly at the box office. Fan trust eroded. And Marvel’s insistence on selling identity politics instead of tight storytelling only widened the gap between studio hype and audience reaction.
Final Thoughts
Kumail Nanjiani’s six-film Eternals contract is a reminder of just how far Marvel misjudged both the market and its audience. Cast members made sweeping claims about saving lives and “upsetting the right people,” only for the movie to stumble critically and financially.
(L-R): Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) and Karun (Harish Patel) in Marvel Studios’ ETERNALS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
For Kumail Nanjiani, it meant therapy instead of superstardom. For Marvel, it meant the end of its aura of invincibility. And for audiences, it was proof that no amount of Hollywood virtue signaling can cover up a lifeless story.
Eternals was meant to be the start of something big. Instead, it may be remembered as the moment Marvel began to fall.
Do you think we’ll ever see Kumail Nanjiani in Marvel again? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
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