Well, it’s official. Jonathan Majors is officially out as Kang, undoing years of plans for a marriage between the actor and Marvel that was supposed to introduce one of the most iconic performances for a Marvel villain of all time. It was going to be amazing! Unfortunately, his arrest for domestic violence threw a Mjollnir-sized wrench into those plans. Now the part will be recast. Some actor out there is about to get quite the call.
News of the firing was confirmed by Deadline, who spoke to a studio rep at Marvel. The news came in a one-two punch following Majors’ conviction for reckless assault and harassment toward his ex, Grace Jabbari.
Interestingly, it sounds like Marvel is not scrapping its plans for Kang, just Majors. That means that Avengers: Kang Dynasty is moving forward as planned, as is the planned sequel, Avengers: Secret Wars. This is the rumor right now, however. These things could change.
This is Marvel’s flagship superhero team we’re talking about here. Marvel really put all its eggs into Majors’ basket, and it’s a gamble that didn’t quite pay off. Before the scandal, Majors was Hollywood’s golden boy. It’s hard to quantify just how far from grace he’s fallen. Even worse, the effects this will have on Marvel remain to be seen.
It’s not like we didn’t know this was coming. There was only two ways out of this, guilty or not guilty, and even the latter would still leave the stink on Majors’ career. After his arrest, his manager and publicist quit. His movie about a disturbed bodybuilder, Magazine Dreams, was shelved by Disney, despite having major awards season heat.
He also lost an ad campaign for the Texas Rangers, an Otis Redding biopic, and and adaptation of the novel The Man in My Basement. A Nov. 1 expose in Variety didn’t help at all. It said Marvel was debating what to do with Majors at an annual retreat, and that the company was thinking about pivoting to Doctor Doom instead, with a new actor.
The report forced Kevin Feige himself to deny the rumors, but look where we are now. There’s a chance that Marvel’s had a contingency plan going all along of course, and we had some evidence that pointed toward that recently.
That said, fresh intel has since surfaced which claims that Marvel is indeed shifting its focus away from Kang, which could mean that the much-anticipated Avengers: The Kang Dynasty might no longer exist. Let’s examine the evidence…
Is Marvel really “moving away” from Jonathan Majors as Kang?
First piece of evidence: Writer and journalist Joanna Robinson caused a stir in the Marvel sphere recently with her tell-all book MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios. It made the shocking claim that Marvel is “likely” to be “moving away” from its “Kang storyline.”
While speaking to Ringer’s House of R podcast, Robinson claimed that screenwriter Jeff Loveness has parted ways with Marvel. Following penning Kang’s debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Loveness initially seemed like a safe pair of hands to trust The Kang Dynasty in, but fan opinion turned against the scribe following Quantumania‘s poor reception. Here’s what Robinson had to say:
“I was asking about the screenwriter Jeff Loveness, who wrote Quantumania and was supposed to write Kang Dynasty. I had it confirmed to me he’s no longer working for Marvel. I asked the person why; they said he was all wrapped up in this Kang storyline, and they are likely going to be moving away from that.”
However, losing a screenwriter does not mean the death of a movie. This is Hollywood, after all. An official Marvel Studios source, Loki producer Kevin Wright confirmed that Michael Waldron — Loki season 1’s showrunner and writer of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — is currently working on both The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars. So, wait, what does this mean?
What’s next for the Avengers without The Kang Dynasty?
Waldron was already hired to pen Secret Wars so it appears that Marvel has now asked him to take over from his former Rick & Morty colleague Jeff Loveness to retool The Kang Dynasty. This again points to Marvel preparing for the recent eventuality of losing Majors. It’s safe to assume those plans are currently in motion and that TKD is being reworked into a different kind of Avengers 5.
Secret Wars was always possible to do without Kang, given that the Beyonder and Doctor Doom (technically God Emperor Doom) are the big bads of the two comic book Secret Wars events. If The Kang Dynasty isn’t simply scrapped and is instead reimagined then it will need to be rebuilt from top to bottom.
It would be nice if Marvel would stick to local villains and maybe pull in Mephisto, Magneto or even Galactus, but we have to remember that the upcoming Fantastic Four movie also needs a big bad, and Doom would make more sense over there.
However, with the multiverse cracked wide open, the sky is really the limit with what Marvel can do to take Kang’s place. However, given Waldron’s involvement, it’s even tempting to imagine Scarlet Witch could return to cause more havoc. Perhaps in some kind of reverse of House of M, where she brings mutants into the MCU’s reality instead of wiping them out.
Let’s also not forget that this isn’t the first time Marvel’s had to recast a highly-visible character, well, maybe not on this scale but it has happened. Back in the early Iron Man days, Terrence Howard crushed the role of Rhodey in the first movie.
The company couldn’t quite agree on a deal and negotiations broke down, so they recast the role with Don Cheadle. Now it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role.
Overall, it’s not worth worrying just yet that we’re going to have to wait until Secret Wars gets here in May 2027 for our next Avengers fix. Disney will be desperate for those big bucks that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes bring, so you can bet that something will fill The Kang Dynasty — currently scheduled for May 1, 2026 — whether it’s a new actor, or a new villain altogether.
from Movie News | Movie Reviews | Movie Trailers https://ift.tt/i3qePlv
0 comments: