For quite a long time, it felt as though all the new Marvel movies would be ranked above many that came before, as the franchise was on a serious roll that seemed unlikely to ever slow down. However, all things change, and we have now gotten to the point where solid critical hits like Thunderbolts* and decent-ish money-makers like The Fantastic Four: First Steps are interspersed with big-budget films that really don’t fare so well. Kumail Nanjiani, the star of one such 2021 MCU entry, Eternals, has now been very open about being “shattered” by his film’s performance and needing therapy to deal with it.
What Did Eternals’ Kumail Nanjiani Say About Needing Therapy After The Movie’s Poor Performance?
Fan response to the many Marvel movies in order has changed radically over the past several years, as the post-Infinity Saga films haven’t exactly set the world on fire like the first decade or so of releases did. One of the movies that had the typical Marvel buzz, but disappointed when viewers checked it out was Eternals. Despite the massive star power on screen (along with Kumail Nanjiani, the superhero team included Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, Gemma Chan, Brian Tyree Henry and more) and decent box office, the reviews were mixed at best.
Nanjiani recently appeared on the Working It Out podcast, where he and fellow comedian/host Mike Birbiglia got into the topic of working out new material for their stand-up acts. When asked what he’s been putting together lately, the Oscar nominee revealed that “the last 15 minutes” of his set now revolves around how Eternals’ negative reviews impacted him:
I was in this movie called Eternals. Big Marvel movie, and it came out and got really bad reviews, and didn’t do that well. It, like, shattered me too much. That’s when I was like, ‘Oh, I need to go to therapy to figure this out. Too much of my self-esteem is tied up in other people’s reaction to my work.’
Boy, that’s rough, right? I can only imagine that there are several other actors who’ve have similar experiences. The Big Sick star also mentioned that the movie came out after some of the heat from the pandemic had passed and folks were allowed back into theaters, but this meant that he’d had about a year and a half of sitting at home and dreaming of how successful the film would be.
It might seem foolish for the Silicon Valley lead to have done this, but the fact is that this movie had been built up, even by those at Marvel. In early 2024, Nanjiani talked about how the thought was that the film would be “really, really well reviewed” so they lifted the review embargo early and sent the cast on the press tour at the same time, assuming they’d be able to bask in the glow of unbelievably positive word of mouth. But, that didn’t happen.
The lead up to the film’s debut also set his hopes high, because he mentioned signing on for “six movies, a video game, a theme park ride” believing that his time as Bollywood star/Eternal Kingo would last for at least a decade. While anything within the Marvel multiverse is possible, it seems unlikely that we’ll see Nanjiani or his fellow Eternals again in the near future, but at least it sounds like he’s come to terms with how the movie not quite living up to expectations affected him and can keep on keepin’ on.
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