3 Nov – He was supposed to play THE ultimate villain after Thanos, but Jonathan Majors seemed to have now become a major headache to Marvel executives. In a Variety article published recently, it was said that the Marvel team, including studio chief Kevin Feige, have been reeling from various issues that sparked since they started Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), from hybrid releases, lacklustre response due to superhero fatigue, to filming issues.
But the biggest of them all has to be Jonathan Majors, who was arrested on assault, strangulation and harassment charges against a woman back in March from a domestic dispute. The actor is set to stand trial for the domestic abuse charges.
Majors was poised to carry the next phase of MCU through his portrayal of the villain Kang the Conqueror, and that the possibility of him losing his case might affect the studio. It was reported that executives are now discussing backup plans, including shifting the angle from Kang to another Marvel supervillain like Dr. Doom. However, such a change would bring about continuity issues, what with Majors already being featured in "Loki" as well as "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania", and was supposed to be at the centre of the upcoming "Avengers: The Kang Dynasty". "Marvel is truly f***** with the whole Kang angle," says one source. "And they haven't had an opportunity to rewrite until very recently [because of the WGA strike]. But I don't see a path to how they move forward with him." Marvel's next serving is "The Marvels", which unites Brie Larson's Carol Denvers with Iman Vellani's Ms. Marvel and Teyonah Parris' Monica Rambeau. With the budget of USD 274.8 million, the film has to do very well at the box office to be considered a success.