ETERNALS Star Kumail Nanjiani Says He Has Trauma From the Film's Negative Reviews

Marvel’s Eternals was not the most well-received MCU film from critics and fans. It was definitely a big disappointment, but according to one of the film’s stars, Kumail Nanjiani, Marvel Studios fully expected the movie to be a massive hit, and when it wasn’t, when the bad reviews started rolling in, it was not easy for the actor. It was really hard on him. He ended up going to therapy over it, and it’s something that he still says he has trauma from. Nanjiani shared on Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast:

"It was really, really hard, because Marvel thought that movie was going to be really, really well reviewed, and so they lifted the embargo really early, and they also put it in some fancy movie festivals, and they sent us on a big global tour promoting the movie right as the embargo was lifted. And so we had to travel the world, while they thought we'd be going on a wave of raves, and it wasn't true.

He went on to say that he started reading every review and it kind of spun out of control:

"I was too aware of it. I was reading every review, I was checking too much, because this thing had become too much in my head… I think that there was some weird soup in the atmosphere for why that movie got slammed so much, and not very much of it has to do with the actual quality of the movie. Anyway, it was really, really hard, and that's when I was like, 'This is unfair to me, it's unfair to Emily [V. Gordon, Nanjiani's wife], I can't approach my work this way anymore, some shit's got to change.'"

Nanjiani then said he started therapy in the aftermath of all that and said:

"I still talk to my therapist about that. Emily says that I do have trauma from it.'“

Eternal’s currently sits at 47% on Rotten Tomatoes, which at the time was the lowest critics score for the entire MCU. It's since been surpassed by Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which scored just 46%. 

As a fan of Jack Kirby’s Eternals comics, I was expecting something epic and exciting, and a film that told a great and interesting story. But for me, the story that the movie told didn’t click with me and there were just too many silly creative choices that just didn’t make sense to me.

Regardless, I do think some people can relate to where Nanjiani is coming from. I know I can!