Jonathan Majors doesn’t care if you didn’t like Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania
The Creed III actor isn't about to be brought down by some bad reviews
Aux News Jonathan Majors
Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has been divisive in the two weeks since it hit theaters. Drastically shifting in scope from the previous two Paul Rudd-starring entries, the story also shoulders the responsibility of introducing the franchise’s new big bad, Kang the Conqueror, who will eventually face off against the Avengers. The threequel didn’t quite work for everyone, and it currently holds a 47% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though it has an 83% audience score. (Hey, your mileage may vary! For what it’s worth, The A.V. Club graded it as a B-, saying, “Quantumania is certainly entertaining from start to finish, and it’s the first film since Endgame with real stakes.”)
Jonathan Majors, who plays the aforementioned comic book villain, isn’t about to spend too much time dwelling on the negative reviews. Speaking to IndieWire’s Screen Talk podcast (via Variety), the Lovecraft Country star weighed in on the critical response to Quantumania.
“It doesn’t change how I see myself, period. It’s all data,” Majors tells Screen Talk. “I’m a performance within a story.”
It probably helps that even the harsher reviews still had some kind words for Majors’ performance and that he’s been beloved both onscreen and off since his breakout role in The Last Black Man In San Francisco. This is, after all, a man who’s very committed to being happy, healthy, and hydrated. Nothing can bring him down!
“It’s just people,” Majors says of critics. “They have an opinion. You always have an opinion. I’m no fool. I know these are people writing it. These aren’t my Yale professors or my drama teachers. These are people who have kids and they have a perspective, they have a religious upbringing or a lack thereof. They live in this town, or they want to be seen in this way or don’t want to be seen in this way. I look at the aggregate and, ok, 47. But what does that 47 mean when you also got this amount of box office? What do these things mean? It’s information. I am in the know. I won’t play myself. If you are a critic on a level, I probably know you and understand your politics.”
Meanwhile, Majors also stars in Creed III, which is breezing into theaters this weekend with an 87% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 96% audience score at the time of this writing. The A.V. Club’s review praises Majors’ “passionate commitment.”
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Did he go to Yale?
Yes.
Cracky was a man consumed by his addiction. Every waking moment was spent chasing his next high, and he would do whatever it took to get it.He didn’t care who he hurt or what he had to do to get his fix. He had lost everything he once held dear to the drug, including his job, his family, and his home. He lived on the streets, moving from place to place and doing whatever it took to get his next hit.One day, he stumbled upon an old man who offered him a deal. The man had a valuable item – a heart of gold – that he needed to sell, but he couldn’t do it himself. He offered to give Cracky a cut of the profits if he could sell it for him.Cracky didn’t care about the heart of gold or the old man’s situation. All he saw was an opportunity to make some quick cash to feed his addiction.He took the heart of gold and went to pawn shops and dealers, trying to sell it for the highest price. But no one was interested in buying it. They all knew it was stolen, and they didn’t want to get caught up in any legal trouble.As the days passed and he still hadn’t sold the heart of gold, Cracky grew more desperate. His addiction was getting worse, and he needed money to feed it.One night, he was approached by a man who promised him a large sum of money in exchange for the heart of gold. The man said he had connections and could sell it for much more than anyone else could.Cracky didn’t care who the man was or what he would do with the heart of gold. He just wanted the money.But things quickly went wrong. The man turned out to be a drug lord, and he was angry that Cracky had stolen the heart of gold. He had his men beat Cracky within an inch of his life, and then left him bleeding in an alleyway.Cracky died that night, alone and broken. His addiction had consumed him, and he had paid the ultimate price for his desperation.In the end, there was no redemption for Cracky. His story was a tragic one, a cautionary tale about the dangers of addiction and the lengths some will go to feed it.
wtf?
You mean you never heard of Cracky, the Crackhead with a Heart of Gold, which he stole to get money for crack?
Honestly, these movies are such big, complex projects with so many moving parts, and especially the Marvel project sounds like a thing where you’re filming scenes months/years after the fact to recalibrate plot/effects; I doubt there’s a single person who’d 1) feel sure the movie will be good or bad and 2) feel personally responsible for that result.Even outside Marvel that’s the job: try to pick a promising-looking project, show up to work as best you can, then compartmentalize the heck out of the promotional tour.
compartmentalize the heck out of the promotional tour. Mustn’t…mention…Don’t Worry Darling!
but we just have to mention it one last time tho!
It’s especially gratifying to see the writer hit back so hard at the people who were upset that MODOK wasn’t a super dark and serious character.
They fucked up. If they were gonna go for comedy the patton oswalt version from the tv show wouldve been better.
The Gwenpool comic series did what seems to be a much better comedic turn with MODOK than this film by the sounds of it.
My issue was more that he was a pointless character whose sole purpose was to individually bump into members of the Ant-Fam so they could say “whoa Darren why do you look like that now?”
Please explain to me the narrative purpose of having him in the film.
Was it cuz he was a brother to Scott? Oh wait that was just a non-sequitor.
I do this test when I watch films where if I’m interested in what is on screen I stay awake. I did not pass the test here.
I’m still trying to understand why anything with Kang matters if there are infinite Kangs. He just got here and we’ve already seen him defeated a couple of times. By non-Avengers. What kind of threat is he?
Disney is going to care if their movies stop making money, though. Looks like people might be starting to vote with their wallets.
Yeah, Majors is lucky he has Creed 3 this weekend.
Well I haven’t seen it, nor do I intend to. How’s he feel about that?
Unless he gets a percentage of the box office, he shouldnt care.
Right? I mean, even if they didn’t like it, they must’ve ponied up to sit there.
He don’t care. His mortgage is paid and his SAG insurance is in place
Ha. Get rekt, Jonathan Majors
I almost got away with not seeing it. Don’t see it. Waste of time. Bad writing, predictable ending, if Kangs coming back why do we need to see this film, etc.
Just to give you an idea of where I’m at, I immediately re-watched Black Widow afterwards and thought “hey this isn’t actually so bad”. I’m not kidding. That movie takes itself seriously at least.
You ain’t his Yale professor!
Considering that most of the reviews praise Majors even when they’re critical of the movie overall puts things in perspective.As an actor, all you can do is the best you can with the role given. It sounds like he has a healthy perspective.
So ultimately I respect that take and I feel that is basically all you can ask from an actor. He did the role the best he could, which was really well based on majority of reviews I’ve seen, and then accepted that the response for it will be what it will be.However, with that written, I did laugh at the point about what does a 47 aggregate score mean when you are making this amount of box office. Considering how fast the movie’s box office is falling and there is a legitimate chance it will be the first MCU bust, apparently that aggregate score captures it pretty well.
Will it be? I thought Eternals was their first bust, enough that except for a background joke in She-Hulk, most of the higher ups are like “that movie never happened, I don’t know what you’re talking about”.
There was an Eternals joke in She-Hulk?
It’s the headline of an article on a newspaper. Something along the lines of “Is anybody going to talk about the giant hand sticking out of the ocean?”
When she’s looking at the news on her computer at some point, there’s a listicle in the sidebar that says something like “5 Reasons Why Giant Dead Guy Still Just Sitting There In The Ocean”. Probably the most entertainment I got out of Eternals, laughing at that.
Hey now. I had a lot of fun complining about how terrible it was!
(I saw Nomadland a while after seeing Eternals. Nomadland was such a profound and ming film I can not understand watching it and going ‘yeah, let’s tap this director to direct the film based on the Jack Kirby’s warmed-over New Gods redux. Such synergy!)
If I were getting positive reviews even when I’m in a critical flop, I wouldn’t sweat it either.He’s compelling in everything I’ve seen him in, and is the main reason I still intend to drag myself to see Quantumania before it leaves theaters.
“The check cleared so I don’t care” – most actors Honestly I get that everyone wants their craft to be enjoyed but I think most actors have to realize being in a Marvel movie isn’t about the craft, it’s about making the big bucks so you can afford to do the Indy movie for scale.
“I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.” -Sir Michael Caine on Jaws 4: The Revenge
I love this quote. Well placed.
I still watch every Marvel movie but I’m not even excited enough to try to bootleg one to see if before it gets spoiled(young kids, sick wife and busy job means I have very little time to see movies in theatres these days). Now I just want a couple months and watch it on Disney plus. Which is nice because if I’m falling asleep half way through a to damn long comic book movie(looking at you Wakanda Forever) I can stop it and watch the rest the next day. Im far more exited to take my younger son to go see the Mario movie and take my older son and his D&D group to go see that new movie. Both may be terrible but at least it something different. Honestly best movie experience I had in ages was seeing “Everything Everywhere all at Once” last year. I don’t want to be one of those “Marvel is all the same” people because the movies are different. They just haven’t been good lately
I’m sorry about your wife, Nilus. I’ve seen you around here for I guess a few years now and you’ve always seemed like good people.
There’s a surprisingly good quality torrent on the pirate bay. It shouldn’t be surprising that effort has been put in to make this film easily attainable for free. It’s the only camcorder one I’ve ever sat threw. I feel like I did it properly, I won’t be seeing this again anyway.
Now I know what I thought I needed to know.
I watched a perfect stream on my Kodi, the only issues is sometimes they cut off right as the credits role, so you miss the mid/post credit stuff.
It truly is a jerry Seinfeld worthy cam.
Hope you go from Nilus to Smile-us and your wife recovers, bud, that must be hard
Hope your wife gets well soon, Sir. Godspeed to you and your family. Find the good stuff you loved in your youth and watch them again with your kids when you have time. I try to do that, because all my son watches is YouTube videos… sigh~!
Exactly the right way to take critique, good or bad. Kudos to him.
Clicking over to Variety link, to actually watch the video, and is that an awful chatbot AI speaking? Because, damn, that is really bad.
… How does Paul Rudd feel tho?
That’s so Kang of him!
“Hey, your mileage may vary! For what it’s worth, The A.V. Club graded it as a B-”
I’m in tears right now, are they trying to pretend that they didn’t bandwagon that letter grade before the negative reviews come out? Whoops can’t make it look like we slap good grades on every MCU film LOL.
Gearing up for another ‘-A’ TLOU this weekend!
What is wrong with you? 1/3rd of the 35 comments on this article are you, btw
Scott’s big thing is that he recently saved the universe. His issue lately is that he magically vanished for 5 years of his daughter’s life.
I’m glad the struggles of this film are relatable. Something I can really grab onto as an audience member and relate to.
It must be a weird moment for Jonathon Majors doing all the press for Creed III right now and constantly being asked about Ant-Man sucking.
I’m guessing this isn’t what his mental vision for “the month where I basically have two tentpole films coming out back to back” was.
Majors: 9/10
Is “divisive” a synonym for “absolute garbage” because then yes I agree.**Disclaimer: Eternals is still the worse MCU movie. I fell asleep.
When will this stream on Disney+?I did like Jonathan Majors in Lovecraft County, but couldn’t care less when he appeared in one of the last episodes of Loki.