Bombshell Report Reveals Jonathan Majors' Potential MCU Future

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Thumbnail Image by   → https://www.instagram.com/p/CgcQcPKvGzD/?hl=en  Is Jonathan Majors' legal troubles spelling doom for the MCU? Or is there another villainous replacement ready for the bad guy throne after a report seems to have raised the temperature?

Transcript

00:00 Is Jonathan Major's legal trouble spelling doom for the MCU?

00:04 Or is there another villainous replacement ready for the bad guy throne, after a report

00:08 seems to have raised the temperature?

00:10 Houston, Marvel has a Majors problem.

00:12 Ever since the disturbing allegations swirling around actor Jonathan Majors first broke,

00:17 which spans a wide range of behavior from poor treatment of crew to domestic violence,

00:21 and has resulted in multiple PR companies/agencies dropping the once-rising star as quickly as

00:26 they could, the superhero studio has found itself stuck in limbo.

00:31 Having bet pretty much the entirety of the next phase or so on Majors' casting as the

00:34 villainous Kang the Conqueror and his various variants, the increasing cloud of negative

00:39 attention surrounding the actor has only further muddied the waters.

00:43 Thus far, Kevin Feige and his fellow executives have taken a "wait and see" approach while

00:47 Majors' court hearing in November draws near.

00:50 But that hasn't stopped the bad optics of Majors' performance on the currently ongoing

00:54 second season of Loki from looking worse and worse in retrospect.

01:04 Now a new and comprehensive deep dive by Variety has only shined a brighter light on this mounting

01:09 publicity nightmare.

01:10 If certain fans were under the impression that this was merely a media-generated story,

01:14 well, try telling that to the Marvel higher-ups, who have stayed busy behind the scenes trying

01:19 to put out this fire.

01:20 The report describes a retreat to Palm Springs that studio leadership held this past September,

01:25 where the chief concern revolved around what to do about Majors.

01:28 The main options appear to be doing nothing, which hasn't exactly worked out so far, recasting,

01:34 or pivoting away from Kang completely and relying on another supervillain to pick up

01:38 the slack.

01:39 According to the report, one such backup plan was discussed.

01:43 Considering the characters currently available to Marvel, villains like Doctor Doom could

01:46 be an option on the table.

01:48 Has this officially become a "break glass in case of emergency" situation?

01:52 Marvel might be starting to lean that way, considering what they now have to decide in

01:55 the wake of their latest PR setback.

01:58 Having introduced Jonathan Majors in the season 1 finale of Loki as He Who Remains, and gone

02:03 on to give him a significant role in Ant-Man and the Wasp's Quantumania, not to mention

02:07 an upcoming appearance in a movie literally titled Avengers Kang Dynasty, can Marvel truly

02:12 afford to drop all of that table setting in favor of another antagonist entirely?

02:16 That's the question of the day.

02:18 Variety suggests the possibility of replacing Kang with someone like Doctor Doom, who notably

02:23 starred as the chief villain of Secret Wars in the comics.

02:26 Could the studio fast-track things a bit and have him take on the role originally meant

02:30 for Kang?

02:31 That remains to be seen, but one insider cited in the report emphasized the need for action.

02:36 As they bluntly put it, "Marvel is truly f***ed with the whole Kang angle, and they haven't

02:40 had an opportunity to rewrite until very recently because of the WGA strike.

02:45 I don't see a path to how they move forward with Majors."

02:48 For those who don't know, Doctor Doom is one of the most popular and powerful villains

02:52 in the pages of Marvel Comics.

02:53 A renaissance man of a bad guy, he's the dictator of his home nation, a genius mad scientist,

02:59 a powerful sorcerer, and an egomaniac who makes Tony Stark look downright humble.

03:04 He's generally an enemy and sometimes frenemy of the Fantastic Four, but he has tussled

03:09 with every major Marvel superhero at one point or another.

03:12 If you need to break out the big guns, he's certainly a top-tier choice, especially since

03:16 the film rights to Doom used to belong to 20th Century Fox and have now made their way

03:20 back home to Marvel.

03:22 He's always felt like the secret weapon Marvel Studios had been waiting to deploy at just

03:25 the right moment, and this could be the moment.

03:28 After all, Doom's previous live-action appearances in Fox's Fantastic Four movies were duds,

03:33 and it's about time someone got him right.

03:36 "Doom does not surrender."

03:38 Variety's report also notes that Marvel had already considered moving away from Major

03:42 Kang due to the poor reception at Quantumania, so changing direction and/or recasting wouldn't

03:47 be solely a result of the actor's legal issues.

03:50 Money talks more than anything else, and it makes no business sense for Marvel to cling

03:54 to a villain that general audiences aren't gravitating towards the same way they did

03:58 with Thanos.

03:59 For now, we're in a holding pattern until Marvel makes a decision either way.

04:03 "I'm not going to be a villain.

04:04 I'm not going to be a villain.

04:05 I'm not going to be a villain.

04:06 I'm not going to be a villain.

04:07 I'm not going to be a villain.

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