Marvel Drops Jonathan Majors, Hugely Disrupting Plans for MCU

Majors was just convicted in domestic violence case
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 19, 2023 1:00 AM CST
Marvel Drops Jonathan Majors After Conviction
Jonathan Majors leaves a courtroom in New York, Monday, Dec. 18, 2023. Majors was convicted of assaulting his former girlfriend during a confrontation in New York City earlier this year.   (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Within hours of his conviction on two of the four charges he faced involving a domestic violence incident with his former partner, Jonathan Majors has been dumped by Marvel Studios. The actor had first played supervillain Kang the Conqueror in the first season finale of the Disney+ series Loki, and had also appeared as different versions of the villain across the multiverse in the show's second season and in this year's film, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Marvel had plans to make him the next big villain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but sources tell Variety the studio and the actor have now parted ways.

As the Hollywood Reporter explains, Marvel Studios now has a choice to make: Scratch the Kang idea entirely and re-formulate its current story arc, the Multiverse Saga, around a different villain; or recast the Kang role and move forward as planned with Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, which was supposed to start shooting next year and be released in 2026. (Sources say the project is now simply being referred to as Avengers 5.) The MCU is so interconnected that, as Variety puts it, there could be "pricey repercussions" for either decision. And Majors, who was once a hugely in-demand actor, has now lost his talent manager, his publicity firm, ad campaigns with the US Army and the Texas Rangers, and at least one of the other film projects he was working on. (More Jonathan Majors stories.)

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