A Marvel Cinematic Universe Game Almost Happened, Claimed Eternals Star

At one point in time, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was widely considered one of the greatest things in the history of entertainment. It did something that no other franchise had been able to do by successfully creating a universe of characters based on the Marvel Comics properties and tying them together through movies and eventually TV series, to create a complex narrative that allowed for individual tales to be told, before bringing everyone together for a big clash. However, the universe has fallen on much harder times recently, and that has allowed one of its lesser-used actors to reveal just how much of the MCU has been “trimmed down” since its “fall.”

That actor is Kumail Nanjiani, who played the character of Kingo in The Eternals. For those who don’t know, that film was one of the rare “flops” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and one of the films that had a truly lackluster reception by fans and critics alike. Yet, in the minds of those running the MCU, this would be a big thing, and they told Nanjiani that he’d be around for quite a while. In a chat with ComicBookMovie, the actor stated:

“I was like, ‘This is going to be my job for the next ten years.’ I signed on for six movies. I signed on for a video game. I signed on for a theme park ride. They make you sign on for all this stuff. You’re like, ‘Okay, so I’ll be doing Marvel movies every year, and in between, I’ll do my own little things. Whatever I want to do.’ None of that happened.”

Indeed, none of that happened. In fact, the only thing that Nanjiani has returned for since his MCU debut was the animated series “What If…?” where he played an alternate universe version of Kingo for a single episode.

Let’s focus on the video game aspect of it, though, shall we? It makes sense that Marvel Studios would try to “push things even further” by having a video game be set in their universe, as that could bring even more attention to them if it were successful.

Why didn’t it happen? It’s hard to say. More than likely, they realized that to make a GOOD video game tied into the MCU, they’d need time to do it, and with various outside factors at work during the time of Nanjiani signing his deal, they might have seen that as unlikely to happen.