Jonathan Majors cast in first movie role since domestic assault conviction

Jonathan Majors has landed his first major movie role since he was convicted of assaulting and harassing his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari.

The 34-year-old Marvel actor will star in director Martin Villenueve’s forthcoming independent revenge thriller Merciless, which is currently in pre-production, according to IMDb.

Villeneuve, the younger brother of Dune director Denis Villeneuve, confirmed the news to Variety.

The film is written by Frank Hannah and follows a CIA agent who goes to extreme lengths to protect the woman he loves from a malevolent force. It is scheduled to begin shooting this fall in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Last December, Majors was found guilty of one count of harassment and assault against his ex-girlfriend.

While he avoided jail time, Majors was sentenced to a one-year, in-person batterer intervention program in Los Angeles, California, mandated to continue with therapy and pay a $250 surcharge.

The Manhattan Criminal Court judge also issued a protective order for Jabbari.

During the trial, jurors heard how Majors pulled Jabbari’s finger, twisted her arm, hit her and pushed her in a way that caused her to fall onto the pavement. Surveillance footage showed Majors shoving Jabbari into a vehicle before pulling her back out of the car and dragging her onto the sidewalk.

Majors was arrested on the night of the incident after officers responded to a 911 call to his Chelsea penthouse apartment.

After the actor was found guilty of two misdemeanors, Majors was immediately dropped by Marvel Studios. He had previously played Kang the Conquerer in the Disney+ series Loki as well as the 2023 film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

Both projects had originally set him up as the next big Avengers villain designed to follow in the footsteps of Josh Brolin’s Thanos. The fifth Avengers film was called Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.

This title has since been scrapped, per The Hollywood Reporter, and the project will be officially known as Avengers 5 until a new title is decided on.

Colman Domingo is rumored to be taking over for Majors as Kang the Conquerer. Addressing the rumours in a February interview with Vanity Fair, the Euphoria star said: “My team has had conversations with Marvel about some aspect of the MCU for years. Do I know this to be true or not? I actually don’t know.”

Majors, who was on a stratospheric trajectory before the conviction, has also been dropped from various other projects, including a brand deal with Italian fashion house Valentino, advertisements for Major League Baseball team the Texas Rangers and the US Army, and the lead role in The Man in My Basement, an adaptation of the Walter Mosley novel.