Here’s How Marvel Plans to Deal with Its Jonathan Majors Problem

Marvel Studios is making sweeping changes to its upcoming projects in order to remove embattled star Jonathan Majors from the franchise, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Majors made his debut as Kang in last February’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. He was set to reprise the role across the next phase of MCU blockbusters, most notably in 2026’s Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. But the studio immediately severed ties with the actor after he was found guilty of reckless assault and harassment stemming from a March 2023 incident with his ex-partner, whom he met on the set of Quantumania.

Now, it seems likely Marvel will move away from Kang altogether rather than recast the part. Movies which were set to feature Kang are being drastically rewritten to minimize the character, or excise him from the narrative entirely. Execs say that The Kang Dynasty will undergo a title change to remove the character’s name.

However, Marvel sources contend that some of these changes were undertaken before Majors’ guilty verdict. Creatives apparently had second thoughts about Kang after Quantumania underperformed at the box office, grossing just $476 million worldwide.

Of course, that was before the notion of superhero fatigue became undeniable. While Marvel had a success with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 last May, The Marvels tanked in November, grossing just $84M in North America ($206M worldwide). Last weekend, the studio’s Sony co-production Madame Web opened at a record low for a Marvel property, signaling audience disinterest in superhero movies that are not large-scale events.

In many ways, the Majors dilemma lined up with creative changes that already needed to be made. But even in light of waning interest and troubled star, Marvel maintains the changes aren’t going to constitute a complete reboot, let alone abandonment, of the MCU. Rather, it is looking at the modifications as a “creative retooling.”