Attention LGBTQ+ Marvel fans! More queer superheroes are headed to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
During the world premiere of Chloé Zhao’s Eternals, Marvel Studios president Kevin Fiege opened up to Variety about LGBTQ+ representation in future Marvel films.
“There have been gay heroes before in the comics. It is more than past time in the movies,” Kevin Feige said. “It’s just the start.”
Feige’s comments arrive months after Marvel executive, Victoria Alonso, said that more queer representation is expected to come.
At the Black Widow fan premiere in Hollywood, she told Variety: “It takes time, we have so many stories that we can tell.
“We will empower those that are. We’re not changing anything. We’re just showing the world who these people are, who these characters are… There’s a lot that we have coming up that I think will be representative of the world of today.
“We’re not going to nail it in the first movie or the second movie or third movie, or the first show or second show, but we will do our best to consistently try to represent.”
The forthcoming Eternals movie is set to make history as the first film to feature an openly gay superhero.
Atlanta’s Brian Tyree Henry will be playing Phastos alongside Haaz Sleiman, who will be portraying his on-screen husband.
“There have been gay heroes before in the comics. It is more than past time in the movies,” Kevin Feige says of the Marvel film’s first gay superhero. “It’s just the start.” https://t.co/F6rov2HB1g pic.twitter.com/XZXMs5G4zo
— Variety (@Variety) October 19, 2021
In a recently released teaser trailer, the happy couple is shown in front of what appears to be their home with their son.
In an interview with Out Magazine, Sleiman said his casting was “very smart” as he will “humanise the hell” out of LGBTQ+ families.
He said: “I feel lucky, and I’m grateful. And…I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I feel like Marvel, they were very smart to cast me in it because I got to humanise the hell out of it.
“I got to humanise an LGBTQ+ family and show how beautiful they are.”
The film will also feature the MCU’s first on-screen gay kiss, which Sleiman has described as a “beautiful, very moving kiss.”
“Everyone cried on set. For me it’s very important to show how loving and beautiful a queer family can be,” he said in a 2020 interview with NewNowNext.
“Brian Tyree Henry is such a tremendous actor and brought so much beauty into this part, and at one point I saw a child in his eyes, and I think it’s important for the world to be reminded that we in the queer community were all children at one point.
“We forget that because we’re always depicted as sexual or rebellious. We forget to connect on that human part.”
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