When you sign up for a Marvel movie, you probably expect your career to blow up like a superhero’s origin story—red carpets, fan conventions, maybe even your own action figure. But for Kumail Nanjiani, who played Kingo in Eternals, things didn’t exactly go as planned.
In a recent episode of the Working It Out podcast, Nanjiani got real about how the film’s reception hit him hard—like, really hard9.
Here’s the deal:
He Signed Up for the Long Haul
Nanjiani thought he’d struck gold. He inked deals for six movies, a video game, and even a theme park ride9. He pictured the next decade of his life filled with red-carpet premieres and Marvel paychecks. In his words:
“I was like, ‘This is going to be my job for the next ten years… I’ll be doing Marvel movies every year, and in between, I’ll do my own little things.’”9
Then Reality Hit
Eternals premiered in 2021 to mixed—leaning negative—reviews. It scored a 47% on Rotten Tomatoes (the lowest for an MCU film at the time) and made $402 million worldwide—decent for a pandemic release but underwhelming by Marvel standards39. For context, Shang-Chi made $432 million around the same time, and Spider-Man: No Way Home crushed with $1.9 billion3.
Nanjiani was devastated:
“It came out, it got really bad reviews, and it didn’t do that well. It shattered me too much. That was when I was like, ‘Oh, I need to go to therapy to figure this out.’”9
Why Did Eternals Struggle?
The film had a lot going against it:
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Pacing Issues: At 2.5 hours, it felt long and dragged in parts59.
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Too Many Characters: Introducing 10 new heroes (plus Deviants plus Celestials) was a lot to digest9.
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Marvel Fatigue: By 2021, audiences had already seen WandaVision, Loki, Black Widow, and Shang-Chi—all in the same year3.
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High Expectations: Directed by Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), critics expected something deeper than a standard superhero flick5.
But hey, it wasn’t all bad! Some viewers loved its ambition, diversity, and cosmic scale5. And let’s be real—any movie where Angelina Jolie wears gold armor and fights space monsters can’t be all wrong.
What’s Next for Nanjiani?
Despite the Eternals setback, he’s kept busy. He voiced a duck in Migration, joined the Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire cast, and has projects lined up with directors like James L. Brooks and Andy Serkis9.
Still, the “trauma” of Eternals lingers9. Maybe Marvel will eventually revisit the characters (that half-born Celestial is still sticking out of the ocean, after all)9. But for now, Nanjiani’s MCU future looks uncertain.
Over to You
What did you think of Eternals? Was it underrated? Overhyped? And should Marvel give these characters another shot? Let us know!
For more deep dives into MCU drama, stay tuned. 🍿