One of the more interesting things revealed about Eternals when the Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster was being kept tightly under lock and key was the news we’d be getting a full-blown Bollywood song-and-dance number in the movie, and it would be an understatement to say we haven’t seen anything even remotely similar from the long-running comic book franchise before.
Sure, Hawkeye already has fans buzzing over Rogers: The Musical, but Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo has spent his time away from his intergalactic cohorts building a career as a major film and television star that we’re going to see firsthand. Let’s hope the actor’s cardio training has been as intense as his weightlifting, because Bollywood choreography is incredibly complex and intricate.
In a set interview held during production via ScreenRant, longtime Marvel Studios producer Nate Moore teased what audiences should expect from the Bollywood number, and he even teased that it could take a meta approach that finds Kingo playing Richard Madden’s Ikaris in the in-canon film.
“We like the notion of finding Kingo doing what he does best, which is act, so when we first meet him in the present day, you see a Bollywood performance, and Bollywood means a lot of different things to different people, but they’re just some ideas of how we can express that and bring, and truly bring Bollywood and not Hollywood version of Bollywood to people, and find again, people who make up Bollywood movies and have them consult and talk about how they would shoot things, how they would do things… He might be a big fan of Ikaris.”
Eternals is shaping up to be a completely brand new experience for MCU fans and general audiences alike, and yet another foray into relatively uncharted territory after Black Widow‘s espionage thrills and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings‘ fantasy martial arts trappings.