When Eternals hit theaters in November 2021, the world was just emerging from COVID-19 lockdowns. The film industry had taken a significant hit. While the reunion of three Spider-Men in No Way Home (released just weeks later) allowed Marvel to rake in $1.9 billion at the box office, the MCU struggled to draw audiences to Chloé Zhao's Eternals, which proved to be a major flop.

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The director's desire for on-location shooting pushed the production cost to over $236 million. At the box office, Eternals grossed $402 million worldwide, with only $165 million domestically in the United States, making it one of the lowest domestic scores of the entire Phase 4. This certainly cooled the studio's ambitions for a sequel. Kit Harington (Black Knight) recently discussed this again, and he believes Marvel has indeed abandoned this path.

Eternals: Kit Harington photo You know nothing, Black Knight

The Ephemeral Eternals

When questioned by MovieWeb about a possible return to the role of Dane Whitman, better known to comic readers as Black Knight, Kit Harington was not very optimistic:

“Frankly, I’d love to. But I don’t think there are any plans for it. He’s a really twisted character. There’s this whole story with the Ebony Blade: the more he kills, the darker he becomes, and the more he sinks into a form of addiction. I think it’s a perfect parable for addiction. Someone who starts with good intentions and ends up going bad. I think he’s great. But we’ll see. I don’t know if there's a plan for him.”

The film concluded with a post-credits scene that generated significant buzz at the time: Dane was approached by none other than Mahershala Ali's Blade (whose voice was only heard). To date, this appearance remains Blade's only incursion into the MCU, and it will likely be his last, as the Blade film is, in all likelihood, dead.

Eternals Celestial More beautiful than all Marvels released since

All this to say that, since its release, Eternals has had virtually no influence on the MCU's trajectory. Worse, the universe has barely referenced Chloé Zhao's film, save for a brief presence of Celestial Island in Captain America: Brave New World and an informational banner in She-Hulk. Ultimately, none of the characters introduced in 2021 have been reused.

The MCU appears to have found its new direction, with Avengers: Doomsday (set to release on December 16 in France) and Secret Wars in 2027. The X-Men casting announcements indicate that Marvel plans to focus on mutants for the beginning of Phase 7, further widening the gap with Eternals, which we will likely never see again.