What do you get when you mix John Wick, one of the early stars of Game of Thrones, and one of the most bankable actors of all time? The Eternals, that’s what. At least, that is, according to a recent rumour. It suggests that Baba Yaga himself, Keanu Reeves, is in preliminary talks to join the MCU for the upcoming Marvel Phase 4 movie, The Eternals alongside Richard Madden and Angelina Jolie. But, please, no one let him near books, pencils, or dogs. We all know how that ends up.
According to Jeremy Conrad at MCU Cosmic (who has a mixed strike rate with this sort of thing, so take it with a pinch of salt), the ex-Matrix star is “being sought for a role in The Eternals,” though there hasn’t been any official confirmation or news of him signing. In fact, as of writing, we don’t even know what role he’s up for.
Having said that, we could take an educated guess. The Eternals – a race of super beings who have been around for millennia – are all pretty distinctive, and it bears to reason that the dark, brooding, facial hair-heavy ex-assassin-for-hire (sound familiar?) of Druig would fit Reeves down to a tee.
Reeves, one of (roughly) six actors who haven’t appeared in the MCU up until this point, actually has previous when it comes to superhero casting rumours. He was previously linked to the role of Doctor Strange and, interestingly enough, told Collider in 2014 that “The idea of a [Marvel-style] long-time contract is sort of ‘errr’ because you want to make sure the material is up to a certain level.”
If this casting rings true and Keanu does sign on the dotted line, however, we could be looking at the most star-studded line-up in MCU history in perhaps its riskiest venture.
Marvel’s MO has traditionally been to swerve ready-made ‘names’ in favour of those who have fallen out of favour or haven’t seen their stars shine as brightly for whatever reason. This is a big change in philosophy if so but, after 22 movies and billions upon billions of dollars, I think we can trust Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios to bring this one in for landing pretty smoothly. After all, they made everyone fall in love with a talking tree.
Keanu could be a very busy man in the next few years. Here's what we know about his next big flick: John Wick 4.
