The Eternals’ Kumail Nanjiani Responds To The Movie’s Delay (And Wait For Audiences To See His Ripped Body)

Marvel Eternals star Kumail Nanjiani in Big Sick
(Image credit: (Amazon))

It feels as though it's been a long, cold winter without another Marvel movie to drop our jaws over and pick apart; since summer 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, in fact. So the actual world has gone through its own cataclysmic event or two since we last saw a fresh-faced Peter Parker fight off against Mysterio in London, but that’s exactly what these heroes are for, right? Eternals is the next big team film to look forward to, and it was delayed to early 2021.

What’s stranger is we're only five months away from Eternals coming out and we’ve yet to see a trailer for the February theatrical release. There hasn't even been a decent image of the team other than the brief look during the D23 panel when Kit Harrington was also announced as the film’s Black Knight. One of the film’s stars, Kumail Nanjiani, has now responded to the delay and silence surrounding the film with these words on Twitter:

I know there isn’t much news yet! I’m in the dark too, trust me. I can’t wait for it, whenever it comes. But I promise the movie will be worth the wait. It's the most exciting, fun, epic, thrilling, hilarious & moving project I've ever been a part of. And it's massive. The scale of it is unlike anything I've ever seen. I would walk on to shoot and be awestruck by the sets every day.

We’re hyped for it! Eternals will tell the story of an immortal alien race who have been living on Earth throughout 7,000 years of its history. The key players will be Angelina Jolie’s Thena, Salma Hayek’s Ajak, Richard Madden’s Ikaris, Gemma Chan’s Sersi, Barry Keoghan’s Druig, Dong-soek Ma’s Gilgamesh, Brian Tyree Henry’s Phastos, Lia McHugh’s Sprite, Lauren Ridloff’s Makkari and Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo.

The Big Sick star’s Kingo will be incognito as a Bollywood star in the present day, and will even have a dance number with over 50 dancers. Kumail Nanjiani virally got super ripped for the Marvel role, which he has been even been keeping up in quarantine. Eternals is extra special for Nanjiani because he has the honor of portraying the first Pakistani superhero. Since the minority group in Hollywood has often been characterized as terrorists or tech nerds, he wanted to approach Kingo with strength and “full of joy.”

Much like Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014, Eternals will once again allow Marvel to adapt a lesser-known superhero team to the big screen. It's one of the few non-sequels in MCU’s upcoming Phase Four aside from Shang-Chi. The film definitely sounds as if it will be one of the most ambitious Marvel projects, crossing multiple eras of time, cultures and depicting the MCU’s first same-sex relationship to screen.

Eternals is currently set for February 12, 2021, following Black Widow kicking off the new Marvel era on November 6. Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more Marvel news.

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.