Pakistani-American actor Kumail Nanjiani made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in the 2021 film Eternals as Kingo. While the actor seemed excited about his MCU entry, the film did not do too well at the box office. In a recent interview, Kumail revealed that the negative reviews for Eternals took a toll on his mental health.

Kumail Nanjiani breaks silence on Eternals' bad reviews 

“The reviews were bad, and I was too aware of it,” said Nanjiani, who played Kingo in the 2021 Marvel film during an appearance on the Inside of You With Michael Rosenbaum podcast. He added: “I was reading every review and checking too much.”

“It was really, really hard because Marvel thought that movie was going to be really, really well reviewed, so they lifted the embargo early and put it in some fancy movie festivals and they sent us on a big global tour to promote the movie right as the embargo lifted,” Nanjiani continued.

The failure of Eternals 

Eternals hails from Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao and features a star-studded ensemble including Nanjiani, Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Barry Keoghan, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Don Lee, Kit Harrington, Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie. The superhero epic is one of Marvel’s worst-reviewed films to date, with a 47 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Along with being aware of the poor reception, Nanjiani added that the Eternals press circuit occurred in 2021 after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, so everything felt particularly “heightened.” “I think there was some weird soup in the atmosphere for why that movie got slammed so much, and I think not much of it has to do with the actual quality of the movie,” Nanjiani said.

(with inputs from IANS)