Eternals was something of a mixed bag in the eyes of many fans. Regardless, it delivered quite the gut punch by revealing that Ikaris both killed Ajax and had secretly been manipulating events to ensure Arishem would emerge from inside the Earth.
When his team turned their backs on him to save humanity, Ikaris decided he would not intervene and instead chose to fly into the sun, seemingly ending his life and Richard Madden's time in the MCU. An Eternals sequel is looking increasingly unlikely as time passes, but the movie ended with a major cliffhanger, and many fans remain hopeful that Ikaris could have somehow survived or faked his death.
It's not outside the realm of possibility (we are talking about superheroes here), especially as Arishem would likely be able to resurrect the synthetic immortal through a replica body. After all, if you're at all familiar with the comics, you'll know that death and resurrection are a big part of what makes an Eternal, well, eternal.
Ikaris is set to make an appearance in Marvel Animation's Marvel Zombies later this month, but we don't anticipate Madden lending his voice to that undead Variant.
Still, if scooper @MyTimeToShineH is to be believed, we haven't seen the last Madden as Ikaris. The insider claims that "he's gonna be back for more," but doesn't specify when and where that might happen. The Game of Thrones alum is hugely talented, and it would be a colossal blunder to let him and the rest of the Eternals cast slip out of the MCU's grasp on Kevin Feige's part.
"Well, he flew into the sun. That's kind of hard to come back from," Madden previously said of possibly returning as the conflicted villain. "Isn't it?"
Aside from his role in Citadel, Madden remains a fan-favourite choice to play the next James Bond and is often imagined as all manner of DC characters. Batman is somewhere near the top of that list, so perhaps he'll find a place in the new DCU.
Recently, Kingo actor Kumail Nanjiani opened up on the disappointment he felt when Eternals was released to mixed reviews in 2021.
"It came out right after COVID, so I had a year and a half at home to be just like, 'When this thing comes out...'" Nanjiani said of his excitement to for the world to see the movie, and the expected impact it would have on his career. "It came out, it got really bad reviews, and it didn't do that well. It shattered me too much. That was when I was like, 'Oh, I need to go to therapy to figure this out.'"
"I was like, 'This is going to be my job for the next ten years.' I signed on for six movies. I signed on for a video game. I signed on for a theme park ride. They make you sign on for all this stuff. You're like, 'Okay, so I'll be doing Marvel movies every year, and in between, I'll do my own little things. Whatever I want to do.'"
"None of that happened," he continued. "For me, what really hit me was realising that too much of my self-esteem is wrapped up in other people's reactions to my work. People have way bigger problems than this. I loved the movie. I'm very proud of it."
Let us know what you'd like to see from the MCU's Eternals moving forward in the comments section below.