Do you remember Eternals? I do, even though it feels like a fever dream now. But it turns out one of the stars, Kit Harington, says he is fully on board to return to the role. That is, if Marvel ever bothers to acknowledge that he, along with all the other superheroes featured in that film, exists.
In an interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast with Josh Horowitz, Harington was asked about his time in Eternals as Dane Whitman (aka The Black Knight) and whether there was ever a set process for how that character would be incorporated into the MCU as a whole.
Harington said it was the process a lot of characters go through — where a random character is thrown to the audience, and Marvel tries to see if they'll stick — but this time, it just didn’t work for this film. However, Harington did say that he believes the character itself is fascinating and that there is a good story that could be told if Marvel ever wanted to dive deeper into it:
“There's something fascinating to play with the Black Knight…the Ebony Blade is what he uses and then gets bloodlust…I think there's an interesting story of someone going from hero to villain there. So yeah, anyone from Marvel watching... I do think it could be a fascinating story but they got so much."
If you’re trying to remember exactly what Harington was talking about, his character was teased at the very end of Eternals. In a post-credit scene, an unseen character asks Whitman if he's ready to wield the “Ebony Blade,” also known as the weapon of the Black Knight. His character can use the heirloom, but holding the weapon can lead to what Harington said before: “bloodlust.” This, in turn, leads the character to become "The Black Knight."
It was later confirmed that the character who spoke to Whitman was indeed Blade, back when we all thought a Blade movie was happening. However, recent reports and confirmations have all but wiped Blade from the MCU release timeframe, especially since Mahershala Ali has said he is not actively involved with the character or film right now.
When Eternals first released in 2021, I'd say the franchise was in its “teenage phase,” even though we had already gone through the first three phases of the MCU. It felt like it was struggling to find its place in a post-Thanos world, especially when movie theaters were still seeing low attendance because of COVID-19.
I still think Eternals is a very underrated movie, and if the Kang storyline had played out, the characters could have had a decent part in this MCU. I still think Eternals 2 should have happened. But so far, that post-credit scene — as well as the mid-credit scene featuring Harry Styles as Eros — has amounted to nothing in the MCU.
However… that doesn’t mean he couldn’t ever appear in the MCU.
How Dane Whitman — and The Black Knight — might appear
While a Blade film is off the table for now and doesn’t seem likely anytime soon, there is at least one encouraging sign that the Black Knight could return in some way, depending on how the next few years play out in the film universe.
This includes the announcement of a Ghost Rider film, confirmed at Comic-Con last July, starring Ryan Gosling as the titular character.
His real name is Johnny Blaze, but his story is that he sells his soul to a demon to save his foster father and, in doing so, becomes bonded to a demonic entity that turns him into a flaming skeleton with insane demonic powers.
There’s already been a Ghost Rider film, but it had nothing to do with the MCU. This is the first time we’ll be seeing this character in this world. And why is that an encouraging sign for Dane Whitman? Well, it’s that the MCU is leaning a little more into supernatural powers rather than the typical mutations or anything else.
While Dane Whitman isn’t part of the Midnight Sons, a group of supernatural and occult-based heroes, in the comics, there have been rumors that he might be if it ever came to life in the MCU, because his powers fit the theme. If Ghost Rider is going to happen, then maybe a Midnight Sons film could take place.
That said, several other things would still need to go perfectly well for something like this to happen. Ghost Rider would have to be great. A Blade film would finally need to be happening. Maybe we could even get a decent Morbius adaptation at some point; who knows?
But at the end of the day, it’s still a long way off before we get to see him in any shape or form in the MCU. At least it sounds like Harington is always open to the idea, though.
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