Of the many post-credits scene teases in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, one movie may have the lowest hit rate when it comes to fulfilling its promises: 2021’s Eternals. The end of that movie set up some major expansions to the MCU, including the reveal of Harry Styles as Thanos’ brother Eros and the briefest tease of Mahershala Ali’s Blade and Kit Harington’s Black Knight. There was also the giant marble Celestial in the Indian Ocean, but that was nominally addressed in last year’s Captain America: Brave New World.
Now, in the wake of Blade’s definitive cancellation — at least with Mahershala Ali in the role — and the reveal of Ryan Gosling’s Ghost Rider movie, another rumored Marvel project is being addressed: Midnight Sons. Despite setting up plenty of members of the supernatural superhero group across various live-action projects, the actor behind one member of that team says he was never approached by Marvel Studios to make such a film.
As Blade died on the vine amid various starts and stops, rumors swirled that Marvel Studios was planning instead to do something bigger, bringing together various supernatural and monstrous characters to form the Midnight Sons. That team was originally formed in the pages of Marvel comics in the early ’90s, and featured heroes like Blade, Ghost Rider, and Morbius. Plenty of Midnight Sons members have already been introduced in the MCU, including Werewolf by Night, Man-Thing, Moon Knight, Doctor Strange, Wong, and Elsa Bloodstone. One potential candidate for the MCU version of the team was Kit Harington’s Dane Whitman, aka the Black Knight, who would conceivably fight alongside Ali’s Blade.
Kit Harington addresses Black Knight’s MCU future
In an interview with Harington, the Game of Thrones and Industry actor says he was never approached by Marvel Studios to take part in such a project. Harington told Happy Sad Confused host Josh Horowitz that “Nothing solid [was] ever communicated” about a team film featuring his MCU character.
“They’ll throw a character in and see if it goes anywhere,” Harington says of his role in Eternals. “And in the end it didn’t.”
That said, Harington described Whitman as “a really interesting character” and seemed open to returning to the role one day. “There’s something fascinating to play with the Black Knight: the Ebony Blade is [what] he uses and then gets bloodlust,” Harington says. “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 have so much.”
Harington’s not the only actor to address Marvel’s potential Midnight Sons movie. In a previous episode of Happy Sad Confused, Moon Knight actor Oscar Isaac addressed rumors of a Midnight Sons project, but sounded non-committal.
“Yeah, there was interesting talk about Midnight Sons,” Isaac said in April. “Tonally, it’s really important because we’re playing with real stuff with that one. It’s expressing something very real, challenging, and difficult. I feel like … you gotta take it seriously as well. Even though it’s a crazy comic book, that’s what it’s trying to do, it’s doing both of those things.”
Marvel fans will have to instead settle for the next best thing: the video game Marvel’s Midnight Suns, the underappreciated 2022 release that blended XCOM-style tactics with a darker set of Marvel superheroes.