The Marvel Cinematic Universe has already made moves to include gay characters in their films. More recently, Avengers: End Game director Joe Russo played a gay character in his film. While it was a short role, it was something that was noticed and recognized by the LGBT community. The MCU will now be debuting its first-ever openly gay character in the upcoming film, Eternals.
President of the studios, Kevin Feige, confirmed the news without giving away details on who exactly the character is but did explain how the character's sexual history would not be the focus of his story. “He’s married, he’s got a family, and that is just part of who he is,” Kevin told Good Morning America.
The film hits theaters November 6th, 2020 and features a star-studded cast of Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, Kit Harington, Gemma Chan, Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry and more.
"Our audience is global, is diverse, is inclusive. If we don’t do it that way for them, we will fail," Marvel's production chief Victoria Alonso said of welcoming gay characters. "If we don’t put pedal to the metal on the diversity and the inclusivity, we will not have continued success. Our determination is to have that for all of the people out there watching our movies."