With 2023’s Oscars inching closer, Barry Keoghan will be a clear favorite to win Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his immaculate performance in The Banshees of Inisherin. But apart from being attached to several critically acclaimed projects, the actor has also been quite fond of the Comic Book genre, and his desire to star in an MCU project came true with 2021’s Eternals.
Although the movie as a whole wasn’t well received among fans and critics, Keoghan hasn’t shied away from commending Zhoe’s work and shared his viewpoint behind its failure at the box-office
Barry Keoghan shared the reason behind Eternals‘ failure
While speaking with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Barry Keoghan provided his perspective on Eternals‘ failure. Apart from commending Chloe Zhao for her work, he expressed that the reason behind its downfall might be its difference from a traditional MCU entry. Considering MCU’s formulaic approach to most of their projects, Keoghan explained that Eternals might have been too new for the Marvel audience to experience. He said,
“I think Chloe [Zhao] brought a whole kind of feel to it. You know? So Chloe brings, as you’ve seen from her past films, raw performances and really, really touching performances. I don’t think it was. I think it was new. I think it was just new. It was new for the Marvel world.”
Although Keoghan’s statement might have truth to some extent, many fans found the film’s plot broken and believe that the story should have been told in a mini-series instead of a movie.
One user expressed this idea by commenting, “Should have been a 10-part series”, while another fan explained the problem by stating, “To summarize the stakes: they’re either ambiguous, non-existent or we don’t care”. Even though some fans commended the movie, they admitted that it wasn’t in line with the rest of the MCU, with one user explaining, “It is a terrible marvel movie, but it is an excellent film in character development and storytelling”.
Barry Keoghan is open to returning to MCU
Although there hasn’t been any word about the sequel to Chloe Zhao’s movie, it appears that The Batman actor is open to the idea of returning to the role of Druig. Even though the actor isn’t sure about his role in MCU, the actor seems to be optimistic about his future with Marvel. He stated,
“I didn’t get a chance to chat with her too much, but yeah. I’m always optimistic, always. I wanna know what Druig is doing right now. Anyway, we’ll see. You’re not going to get that out of me. I know nothing!”
Despite its failure, as the movie was only able to garner $401 million at the box office, some fans commended the film for trying to be something different than just another formulaic MCU movie. And fans will be hoping to see the incredible cast reprising their roles in future MCU entries. In
Eternals is available to stream on Disney Plus.
