Jonathan Majors had a bright career ahead of him that has now been largely derailed following a conviction for assault. The actor lost several future projects as a result of his legal troubles, but the biggest of them was surely his role as Kang in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Majors was set to be the major villain of the recent and the upcoming Marvel movies, but the franchise has made a significant pivot and is bringing in Robert Downey Jr. to play Doctor Doom in a reimagined version of the next Avengers movie. Majors tells Variety that, under the circumstances, he completely understands why that decision had to be made and holds no ill will toward anybody. He explained…
It’s not in my control. I see it clearly. I understand – it’s a publicly traded company. You’re trying to do this; you can’t have this [controversy] around. That’s what happens when this happens. I don’t hold it against them. I want to make that very clear. I’m not upset with anybody about that. I’m not upset at all.
Majors appeared as different variations of Kang in both Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Season 2 of Loki. Originally, the next Avengers movie was subtitled The Kang Dynasty, showing just how important the character would be to the franchise.
While several of Jonathan Majors' future projects cut ties with him following the charges of assault being levied against him, Marvel held off, and made no official announcement. It wasn’t until Majors' conviction that Marvel decided to cut ties with him. Majors says that following the decision he wrote Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige a letter, in part because the two didn’t speak directly when Majors learned he’d been dropped. The actor continued…
I wrote a letter to him. Not recently, [but] not too far in the past.I just want to clear the record, yeah it sucks. It sucks, right? Like boom, you get the verdict, then boom [you’re dropped], but Marvel’s not mishandling anything by it coming through the grapevine. I got the job through the grapevine. [Kevin] didn’t call me and say, ‘Hey, do you want to do the movie? Do you want to be this guy?’ My agent called me and said it. Then an agent of mine — not my agent — got the news, turned and gave it to me straight. So, I reached out to Kevin.
It’s still unclear what exactly will be done with the existing kang storyline. It may simply be dropped without a word or it might get wrapped up in some other way. Marvel could leave a door open for a possible Kang, and Jonathan Majors, return, if a time comes in the future that using him is seen as more acceptable. Majors is clear in the interview, as he has been before, that if Marvel ever asked him to return, he would. But whether or not he appears in an upcoming Marvel movie remains to be seen.
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