The two equally likely ways Marvel could move forward without Jonathan Majors
Marvel has two paths ahead for the MCU, and they both have a justification built into the lore
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This week, Jonathan Majors was found guilty on misdemeanor counts of reckless assault and harassment against ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari, and later that same day, Marvel Studios confirmed that it would no longer be working with the actor who was said to be the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s new main villain, after Josh Brolin’s Thanos. Majors had already appeared as several different versions of multiversal menace Kang The Conqueror in Loki and Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, and his storyline was going to fully come together in the next Avengers movie (originally announced as Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, but now simply referred to as Avengers 5, per The Hollywood Reporter).
Other than that, Marvel has been predictably tight-lipped about its future plans, meaning we don’t know how the jettisoning of Jonathan Majors is going to impact upcoming Marvel stuff beyond the fact that it has to in some way. With the studio unwilling to give us big spoilers, that leaves us to make wild speculations about what could/should happen. But, in a surprising and refreshing twist, the speculations don’t have to be all that wild because there are really only two options for Marvel at this point: Recast Jonathan Majors and move forward with a different person playing Kang, or do a soft reset and remove Kang from the equation entirely.
Both options are equally likely and equally possible given the current state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so let’s break them down.
Option 1: Recast Kang with a different actor
Marvel’s current storylines are all about the multiverse, which is to say the infinite possibilities afforded by infinite alternate realities. That conceit has already made it possible to put three Spider-Mans in one movie, different versions of famous heroes in another movie, and a bunch of different Lokis in Loki. Quantumania also introduced a huge array of different Kangs—all played by Majors at the time—in a post-credits stinger.
In terms of Marvel lore, then, it would be enormously easy to just bring in a different actor and say “This is Kang now.” No one in-universe would ever need to directly address that he looks different and nobody would ever need to acknowledge the Majors versions of Kang ever again. Marvel could even have a new main version of Kang who establishes his evilness by killing all of the other Kangs offscreen. It would be very clean and easy.
And it would be similarly easy behind the scenes, because Marvel has recast characters a bunch of times in the past, so it clearly doesn’t have any reservations about the practice. Don Cheadle replaced Terrance Howard as James “Rhodey” Rhodes after the first Iron Man, Mark Ruffalo replaced Edward Norton as Bruce Banner after his Hulk movie, and Harrison Ford is going to replace William Hurt as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross in Captain America: New World Order. Nobody in Iron Man 2 or The Avengers bothered to say “Hey, that guy looks different from the last time we saw him” because they didn’t need to.
Recasting Kang would also have the added bonus of reestablishing why he should be the new big bad guy for people who didn’t bother watching Loki or Quantumania, and with the general public clearly experiencing some MCU fatigue, an opportunity to give your villain a second first impression.
Option 2: Replace Kang with a new villain
The more exciting option might be to sideline Kang entirely and move ahead with a different main villain. Now that Marvel Studios has confirmed it has a Fantastic Four movie in the works, the door is open for a handful of additional noteworthy Marvel villains that could easily justify the same kind of multiversal stakes as Kang. Doctor Doom is an obvious one, since he’s arguably THE big Marvel villain in the comics, but there’s also Galactus (the planet-eater is literally the biggest Marvel villain, thank you thank you) or a dark horse candidate like Annihilus (a big bug guy from another dimension).
We’ve got to see at least one of them sooner or later, and having Doctor Strange or whoever say “Oh no, all of our tampering with the multiverse accidentally unleashed this great evil dude” would be almost as easy as saying “Kang looks different now, just go with it.”
And there’s an easy lore justification for this as well: Season two of Loki ended with Tom Hiddleston’s Loki (not the one who died in Infinity War but the one who escaped the regular timeline in Endgame) stepping into the web of the multiverse to physically hold all of reality together so it wouldn’t spin out of control and destroy all of existence. That’s some proper comic book nonsense that could be used to explain why all the different versions of Kang are no longer a threat and why some villain from some other universe suddenly finds themself with a new chance to do evil.
There’s even some reason to think that this is exactly what’s happening behind the scenes, with Marvel Studios hiring Loki creator and season one showrunner Michael Waldron to write the next two Avengers movies. Waldron has experience with the “comic book nonsense” side of the MCU, so it seems important that he—out of all potential writers—has been brought in at this point, years before these movies really need to get off the ground, during a time of apparent disarray for Marvel.
Whatever Marvel chooses and however this all works out, the collective internet will be happy to either second-guess its decision and criticize the rollout, or just numbly accept everything that happens and root for the studio to succeed like a favorite sports team.
135 Comments
I don’t understand why jettisoning the existing plot, to the extent there is one, is more exciting or preferable to just recasting the guy. Just finish what you started, right? Hastily pivoting to a totally different villain with a totally different gimmick sounds like it wouldn’t make anyone happy.
Agreed, just recast. This is somewhat unrelated but, one of the things that really bummed me out was the fact that they didn’t just keep Michael B Jordan to take over as black panther, not T’CHalla himself. Have basically the same plot with T’Challa dying off screen like he did in real life, and then just say that Warmonger was not killed afterall and that he was healed like Winter Soldier.
Jordan was an excellent villain in Black Panther, and part of that is that his view of the world was at least a tempting one. But I’ve never bought into the whole “Killmonger was right” discourse that happened when the movie came out. And I think it would be harder to turn the guy who killed Forrest Whitaker’s character in cold blood into a hero.For what it’s worth, I thought using Jordan in Wakanda Forever was extremely effective, and a highlight of that movie.
Yeah. Part of me thinks it would have been cool to have one “hero” who was a murdering weirdo (sorry, but they never should have uttered the word “Killmonger” on screen.) but the effect it would have on everything else related to Wakanda is just hard to rectify.
They should have built off What If and introduced a Killmonger variant from a timeline where he was raised in Wakanda and became the Black Panther after T’Challa died in childhood. And then had the variant get stranded in the prime MCU timeline, where he recognizes his cousin Shuri and auntie Ramonda.Then Michael B. Jordan could have done a variation on his compelling original performance, but without the baggage of his character having killed Forrest Whitaker’s character in cold blood and stuff.
Yeah, that would have been great.
Plus, his act of burning all the heart-shaped herb so there could be none after him just showed that his own ego was a higher priority than the cause he espoused or the oppressed people he claimed to stand for.
you obviously did not pay attention to Black Panther (the movie) because A. his name is Killmonger and B. he makes it abundantly clear that he fundamentally is at odds with what the Black Panther/Wakanda is supposed to stand for and doesn’t even want his dead body to reside in Wakanda. he would not thank them for saving his life and they definitely wouldn’t then ask him to be Black Panther after he incited a civil war
This is somewhat unrelated but, one of the things that really bummed me out was the fact that they didn’t just keep Michael B Jordan to take over as black panther, not T’CHalla himself.The answer? In the comics, Shuri becomes Black Panther. If you’re going to get a new Black Panther, it makes sense to choose a woman instead of a man.The longer answer? N’jadaka’s a terrorist who regretted none of his choices and died thinking he was right. Why would people CHOOSE him to be the Black Panther? He’s garbage people. If anything, they’d choose a Black Panther without powers, just like Captain America.
Obviously the plot of the story would have had to change a bit
Right, but unless you’re going to recast Shuri in the MCU this won’t work either. Letitia Wright ain’t carrying a solo Panther film.
Agreed, just recast. This is somewhat unrelated but, one of the things that really bummed me out was the fact that they didn’t just keep Michael B Jordan to take over as black panther, not T’CHalla himself. Have basically the same plot with T’Challa dying off screen like he did in real life, and then just say that Warmonger was not killed afterall and that he was healed like Winter Soldier.
He was asked apparently, and intimated he wasn’t interested.
/heavy rumor in LA at the time.
Michael B.J. wanted to direct his stupid Creed threequel that nobody saw instead (which of course, ironically starred Johnathan Majors).
It’s just a idea from people either outright ignoring the story Marvel is telling or from people who never read Hickmen’s Secret Wars run and don’t understand what’s going on.
Took 11 years to go from iron man to endgame.I say keep Kang for the next Avengers movies in 2030, keep building the multiverse storyline. In the meanwhile, just stop making movies where the whole plot center around variants and multiverse.
Next Avengers movie in 2030…
But studio exec wants his second yacht now.
If Marvel wants to finish what they started and recast Kang, then they should do that. And for all we know, that’s exactly what they’re going to do. People are just speculating. For my money though, I don’t find anything about Kang very interesting, and the multiverse gimmick feels tired and done to death to me. YMMV.
Again, the beauty of this is anyone can be Kang.
Get Salma Hayek, Chow Yun-fat, Tom Cruise, Lenny Henry.. let’s go wild!
But the whole point of Kang is that it’s all a bunch of one guy. It’s The Avengers vs. The Citadel of Ricks, not the The Avengers vs. The Citadel of a Ton of Different People Named Rick. Don’t get me wrong, I find all the hand-wringing over how to recast to be silly and a little insulting. All they need to do to recast somebody, is release a press release saying they recast the role, then in the next movie, the guy shows up and people are like, “Hey Rhodey” or “Good morning Cassie,” or “oh no, it’s Kang,” and the audience is 100% caught up.
Yeah, cast new actor, job done. Cast new actors, job fun. 🙂
“Lenny Henry.”I want to be in the universe where he’s in the MCU
Oh I’m sure it’d make some people happy for like 5 minutes (maybe even some people at Disney) before realizing that Kang isn’t (and never was) the problem with the modern MCU.
I agree with you. I think the desire to “finish what you started” is tempered somewhat by the sense that Marvel’s current plans for the future don’t seem to be exciting the audience. There’s an argument that, if you’re heading in the wrong direction and the universe gives you a reason to change course, take the hint.
BUT I WANT TO SEE THIS HALF-BAKED, POORLY EXECUTED PLAN SEEN THROUGH TO IT’S UNSATISFYING CONCLUSION!!!
Disney money bro. Let’s pay the writers, people who have been building sets for years, etc. to just scrap what they have and start from scratch? Whoever thinks they’ll do Doom or whatever now is a moron. Sets take years to construct. There’s no way in hell there isn’t Kang teases in Captain America 4. It would be SO COSTLY to not do Kang at this point. This is just a fluff article.
Nobody likes Kang in the first place. So this is a great escape opportunity.
I would think this would boil down to a time vs money issue for Marvel. Slotting in an entirely different villain would require much more time and effort than I would think they’re willing to expend, and they certainly don’t want to jettison what they’ve spent a while building up to. Even though it might be smarter to take a step back, rewrite, and develop a new story around a new villain. If there weren’t any major new Marvel films for a couple of years followed by one huge one, it might actually get people back on board with your brand again.
I think you could easily insert a variant of Renslayer into the Kang role and it would work. Gugu Mbatha-Raw did a wonderful job in that role, making it pretty sinister in the end. If she could agree to selling her life to Marvel for the next half decade, the villain problem is solved.
In my mind this is the actual choice the MCU has. I don’t see any reason to pivot to a different villain. Either you recast and pretend nothing’s different, or you recontextualize to a perfectly teed up Alt-Kang with someone whose already proven her skill and seems well-liked. The only problems with it are that it finally commits to the “Yeah, you actually do need to watch the TV Shows to follow the movies” headline, and that there’s some connective tissue missing to transition that would be a lot easier if Majors could just come in for a few days of shooting in order to gracefully relinquish his role to someone else. I don’t think either of those are dealbreakers, but recasting is still the path of least resistance.
Majors is never setting foot on a Disney set.
I think Marvel publicly firing Majors within minutes of his guilty verdict being made public means they have zero interest in giving him any additional screen time or the opportunity to make a graceful exit.
This line is inspiring more confusion than I thought it would, so rest assured that I was being facetious.
Rumor is they have wanted to fire him for a while, but he had a clause that no other actor could play the character of Kang. Disney remained tight-lipped on Majors after the incident even as there was a growing push from the public to can him. However, he likely had a morality clause in his contract and the guilty verdict allowed them a clean exit.
I like Renslayer, not sure how I feel about her in the role but could be convinced otherwise. I think a female in the role could work, Major’s affect was so pronounced I think it’d be weird if you casted a similar person to him in the role, either he does a weird impersionation or doesn’t do it at all and that seems wierd to me, the new actor being ‘close-ish’ (i.e. male black buff) – you know, now that I’ve been on this, I sort of do like Renslayer, I think that actress has more range than we’ve seen in Loki.
I think that shipped sailed when they didn’t confirm she was a Kang during season two of Loki. Sure they could still do it, but it would seem like a retcon now.
Has fear of retconning ever stopped Marvel before?
Literally that could be her first minute of introduction in the next film. “I met Kang, worked with him. He never told me I was him.” Boom, move onto the plot.
If Sylvie is a Loki – but had no idea that she was a Loki – and RR was trying to hunt down all of the problematic Lokis, then your version actually makes for pretty effed up, awesome twist!
Given that a version Ravonna Renslayer has actually been a Kang variant in the comics, this is infinitely doable. So has Nebula. Maybe also Mantis.
Man, I’m not sure if I can recall someone who fell so hard right when their star was really rising in recent memory. To think, all he had to do was not be a massive shithead.
But he was already a massive shithead.
Agreed, but some people are their own worst enemy. And lord knows Hollywood either attracts or creates people with huge ego problems.
TJ Miller comes to mind. In the mid-2010s, he was a regular cast member on a very successful HBO show (Silicon Valley), was regularly in a handful of movies every year including some big franchises, and regularly toured his stand-up with a couple of specials produced. Plus he did voices on commercials too. It’s not hard to imagine that he was making a good eight-figure salary with everything combined. Nowadays all he has left are standup performances in smaller venues.And from a sports perspective, Mel Tucker really destroyed his career this year.
TJ Miller is a good example. His star wasn’t shining quite as bright as Majors, but he was in everything for a while there before suddenly disappearing.
Man I feel bad for Miller. Guy has a literal brain abnormality that causes manic episodes. Apparently it had just been stuff like “get up at 5 am, work a full day on set and then do standup till midnight” until the train incident, at which point he went and got a (court ordered) neuropsychologist.He’s doing better now but he’ll never act again unless he wants to work for the Sound of Freedom people.
Plenty, especially recently. TJ Miller, Aziz Ansari, Gina Carano, Armie Hammer, Mel Tucker.
Was Carano that big though? I only know her from the star war. I don’t know who Tucker is at all.
Carano went from a very short time as a MMA fighter, to being the main character in a Soderbergh movie, as well as being in Deadpool, and the Fast Furious which is how she was picked for Mandalorian. If she didn’t blow it, she could’ve been one of the top female action stars. Now the only gigs she gets is doing Breitbart and Ben Shapiro movies. Mel Tucker is more sports, but he was one of the highest paid coaches in the country until he blew it too with sexual harrassment charges.
Mel Tucker was even more dumb than regular harassment, he was harassing the person whose job is to tour major college sports programs and try to teach the athletes about not harassing women. He did so via text message too.
“the Star War”That reminds me that Jeffrey Tambor , who wasn’t exactly rising , but was definitely getting media acclaim with Transparent , basically taking an early retirement after his shitty behaviour came out. Even animated characters he’d voiced were recast.Although at least they weren’t completely retroactively redubbed (as happened to UK comedian Rolf Harris when it turned out he’d been indecently assaulting young girls for years )
I don’t recall Aziz going hard right. He mostly just disappeared
I’d say most of those examples weren’t climbing at the level Majors was. He was in EVERYTHING for a while, and topped it all off with a sweet multi-movie deal at Marvel. Miller was ubiquitous but never “headlined” anything except maybe Silicon Valley, Hammer also never really “stood out” as a lead in anything that hit blockbuster status, Gina Carano was NEVER thought of as a “good actor”.
Seems to be your humble opinon here. Not the opinion of critics and awards acadamies and etc in regards to Hammer who “stood out” in Call me by your name. And besides, the OP’s point is not whether or not they were good, but rising stars, and TJ was coming up in the comedy world and Carano in action. In the latter’s case, going from being a retired MMA fighter with no acting experience to the lead in a Soderbergh move is “rising.”Also, Majors was not in “everything,” he’s only been acting for five years and was mostly in indie and black films until the MCU.
I’m the OP, by the way, so I think I know what my intention was.TJ was coming up in comedy, sure. He’d also been around for many years. Carano was escaping her MMA roots but nobody had any pretentions that she was going to be anything more than a supporting action star. Hammer was getting critical acclaim, but he’d also had flops to his name. He had critical acclaim in CMBYN but nothing on the level of a major Marvel repeat character.Majors was only acting for 5 years and had already been in Lovecraft Country (a major HBO show and his breakout role), a major Netflix movie, a Spike Lee movie, Creed 3, and finally securing a recurring major Marvel role. For all of those he got a ton of critical attention including tons of awards.I’m not saying the examples you mentioned weren’t hard falls, but none of them were as big as Majors in such a short time. Certainly not Gina Carano.
Majors has not gotten a “ton of awards” and never anything prestigious other than one Emmy nom. Armie has been nominated far many times. Creed didn’t happen until after the MCU.
And speaking of your OP:
“were as big as Majors in such a short time”Which is not what you initially said and argued. You had actually said: “who fell so hard right when their star was really rising in recent memory.” I provided examples right within that context that you agreed with. Now you’re moving the goal posts to “short time.”
Ok Mr. Pedantic, keep on thinkin that Gina Carano star was shooting sky high. And yes, this is all my opinion, why do you care so much? Just like it’s your opinion that fucking TJ Miller was rocketing to the moon after being the middling comic side character for 10 years.Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas, goodbye.
So instead of admitting you were wrong and even agreed to most of what I argued, you move the goalposts and start resorting to childish attacks, exaggerations, and insults as part of a “agree with me or else you’re a stupid doodyhead” level of teenager. And then you end it with a passive aggressive goodbye to boot too. lol. Too funny, but what I sort of expecting given the sad, sorry state of this comment board these days.
And yes, you are a big Majors fan to point where you are acting like a dick to total strangers on the internet about it. That is obvious.
A big Majors fan? Dude, I called him a gigantic shithead in my first post.Legitimately, what is wrong with you? Why do you care so much about this? I stated my opinion about an actor and his rise to stardom and subsequent fall into disgrace, and you’re getting into pedantry about “right” and “wrong” and bringing up Gina Carano of all people which honestly makes it difficult for me to tell if this is all some elaborate trolling.Sincerely, go outside and breathe some fresh air.
I’m just having a polite discussion here from a point you made. You’re the one childishly rage pounding attacks and insults into your keyboard here because I just disagreed with you on one of your weaker counterpoints.
In that sense, I think you need to take your own advice as going outside and breathing some air. And while you’re at it, maybe learn how to have a discussion with someone and not fly off the handle when they point out that you’re wrong.But you won’t do any of that, so carry on being a dick to total strangers on the internet over Jonathan Majors. lol
Didn’t read it. Your points are still wrong, by the way.
Yes you did. That’s why you replied and keep replying.You really should consider your own advice about taking that breather. Or talking to someone about your obvious anger and maturity issues instead of taking it out on strangers on the internet.
Asari didn’t get canceled. He had a bad date, he was socially inept, the woman posted about it, there was a kerfuffle for a minute, he apologized, she realized she’s kinda overreacted, and that was that.
Well, except for when he lost his Emmy and Golden Globe winning, multi-million dollar show and has done nothing major since. Only one acting credit since 2021 and it was a stand-up comedy special.
No one “gets canceled.” Some of these people get consequences. (The rest of your point stands.)
Didn’t Aziz Ansari get out of media purgatory though?I honestly cant remember.
There was that guy who remade* Birth of A Nation. Seemed like it was gonna be a pretty big deal, and then he basically vanished.*not sure if it was a literal remake.
Ezra Miller, TJ Miller, Louie CK
None of them were soaring quite as high as Majors, but yeah I’ll give you some of those. Although all of those you mentioned never really hit “leading man” status, they were mostly seen as weird freaks, even Ezra in a lead role in the Flash was still a quirky awkward weirdo who had the movie stolen from him by Keaton. Louis CK yeah, he was on top of the comedy world, but he’d been there for a good long time before the crash.Miller went from being in everything to being nowhere, but he was never a leading man, he was always “A TJ Miller Type”. And there are plenty of those.Majors had a very quick rise in the past 5 years or so, with Lovecraft Country, then Loki, The Harder They Fall, Creed 3, and the whole MCU on the horizon…
Honestly, the multiverse thing does help them cover their bases and allow for a more interesting story as to why the Kang variant in charge isn’t the one we’ve been used to. Make it Maharshala Ali (or Yahya Abdul-Mateen II but I just found out he’s gonna be in the MCU anyways lol) or John Boyega, but if I had my choice it would be Lakeith Stanfield if he could gain a bunch of weight and get huge
But Kang doesn’t have to be buff. His power comes from knowledge and technology.
Touche touche I guess I am just thinking of Majors but he’s a bigger dude anyways. Lakeith is an incredible actor, easily my favorite part of Atlanta and so good in all the movies I’ve seen him in as well.
Excuse me, Kang has a strength factor of 4, which is “superhuman class,” “able to lift in the 2 to ten ton range” (which is on par with Spider-Man).
Maharshala Ali has been cast as Blade for some time now but who knows when or if that movie will be made.
and he was someone else before that! Though I guess it’s still somehow unclear if the Netflix shows were the “sacred timeline.”
The movies may have ignored the events of the shows, but the Netflix crew acknowledged the events of the films. They may not be part of the “sacred timeline” but they’re damn close.(I know the Russos said they wanted to include Daredevil and Luke Cage— at least— in the battle at the end of Endgame, but claimed they didn’t want to confuse audience members who hadn’t seen the shows. I don’t know how much stock I put in that, but there’s enough unseen action that you can easily retain their participation.)
That certainly didn’t stop them from dropping some weird kid into Tony’s funeral. I’d imagine a far fewer people would be confused by random heroes punching baddies for a few seconds than they were by “Guy who looks nothing like the boy he played in a movie five years prior”
Parenthetical to a parenthetical: It hurts my brain that we exist in a world that is (supposedly) simultaneously confused by four seconds of Luke Cage stepping out of a portal on a screen crowded with portals… but also totally willing to go with a “Frog Thor in a jar” Easter egg….
That was pruned in the Loom explosion. RIP Defenderverse.
Avengers: “we’ve got you cornered now, Kang!”Lakeith Stanfield-Kang: *mumbles dialogue about them falling into HIS trap*Avengers: “…what? What did he say? Are there captions?”*trap springs*
We all know the greatest villain is unfettered screentime.
I think you break that emergency Dr. Doom glass. He’s a more popular character than Kang and for some reason I can’t fathom MCU guys seem genuinely excited for a new Fantastic Four movie.
The excitement for FF and X-Men both seem predicated on a memory of a now faded love affair with the MCU. Somehow people believe simultaneously that the writing, direction, and CGI of the MCU have all gone to shit, but that the studio that brought you Captain America: The Winter Soldier will be able to fix whatever inherent problems previous Fantastic Four movies had, and several past X-Men movies were already able to solve.
The problem with the current MCU is that they’ve been pushing out too much content with zero plan and Kevin Feige can’t keep up with it all.Also the problems with the previous FF movies were, respectively, “too campy” and “Josh Trank”.
I swear I’ll hang up and listen, but… unless I’m misunderstanding your point, you seem to be questioning whether it’s reasonable to think that any of the worst four MCU movies aren’t head and shoulders betterbetter than than two awful Fantastic Four movies, X-Men Apocalypse, and X-Men Wastes Lady Stark’s Career Arc… If that’s the case, I have to ask: What do you think the worst four MCU movies are? Because whatever is on your list, I have to disagree! I’d take a permanent return to theatrical Thor before I’d throw in my lot with “Oscar Isaac, but he’s a weird candy-vomit color and he can’t turn his head.”
No, I really wasn’t making a comparison at all, but rather saying that whatever problems comic book movies as a genre had before the MCU —and even oftentimes after— were not present in the better X-Men movies. For my money, I think X2 and Logan are probably the best ones, and it’s not that I think a Feige helmed X-Men movie couldn’t be better, but rather that those are pretty great films that aren’t necessarily begging to be wiped off the canon. And even flawed films like The Wolverine are still considerably better than the average superhero movie.In other words, the X-Men might need fixing as of late, but they don’t need the MCU to do it. Fantastic Four might, but according to most people, these days the MCU might need the Fantastic Four to fix itself, and I’m not sure those two ideas are compatible, even though many people probably hold them in tandem. Myself, I think the MCU is chugging along just fine these days, despite the volume and consequent dilution. I continue to like almost everything they put out. But for the people who have been disappointed by most of the recent entries, I think holding out hope for Fox IPs is just going to result in even greater disappointment.
The most fun possible outcome is if they take a cue from the original Secret Wars: just as things are starting, Doom disintegrates Kang out of nowhere (Ultron actually does the disintegrating, if I remember correctly).They could just use some archival footage or CGI, and it could be a laugh moment that would accomplish what they need to do and could plausibly be presented as what the plan was all along. Because Kang may think he’s the king of the multiverse, but Doom is always the God Emperor type when a Secret War rolls around.
I doubt they want to show Majors at all anymore. It’s probably not just about not giving him work.
The multiverse saga was always, always too close after the Infinite War saga. They needed a much more extended period of building up to it, and not do victory laps as much (Nowhere Home, Multiverse of Madness, a few others with lots of winks).
They’re kind of stuck now but I wouldn’t hate them elongating stuff and giving us stakes that are lower and thus matter MORE to the individuals we’re supposed to be rooting for.
Someone is much more likely to be empathetic and get us to feel when they’re rescuing a partner, family member, community. If every single plot is “Save the totality of time and space,” it just makes the audience that much more conditioned to think that any other plot barely matters, and really, time and space kind of had it coming if it’s that fucking fragile.
The fact is that they really had no actual endgame after “Endgame”. They’ve just been spinning their wheels in place for the last 5 years, and whatever the fuck they thought they were planning just blew up in their face. They really should just take a break for awhile honestly.
it doesn’t matter what they do. the juice has been squeezed! it’s over!
If the glove does fit, you must retreat.
Not only is Galactus not the biggest villain in Marvel comics, he wouldn’t even be the biggest villain in the MCU. He wouldn’t be the second biggest! He’s generally smaller than the planets he eats, and Ego IS a planet, and we saw Arishem the Celestial dwarfing Earth in Eternals.
Literally what is even the point of having a multiverse if not so you can cast multiple dudes as different versions of a dude? You can have literally any actor in Hollywood play Kang and it’s entirely baked into the narrative. Bailing on Majors makes sense, but bailing on Kang at this point does not imo. Replacing him with another villain would be awful. Doom should’t be a fallback plan, he’s his own dude with a charcter.Also on an only semi-related note, but if Dr. Doom is introduced in any movie before FF, it would be a terrible move and I would be unreasonably mad about it.
“Also on an only semi-related note, but if Dr. Doom is introduced in any movie before FF, it would be a terrible move and I would be unreasonably mad about it.”What if they introduced Doom as the protagonist of his own series of movies and only introduced the FF as secondary background antagonists to Doom’s story?
I’m sure Doom would love that. Hell, it’s probably mandatory viewing in Latveria.
yes. this
Kang is done. It’s time for the true terrifying villain of the MCU to rise and threaten all of reality: Stilt-Man!
They’ve been teasing Stilt-man so long it’d be hard not to make it anticlimactic.
I pray they just recast because I feel if they don’t, then it means that they consider me and every other person watching these movies such a dumbass that our tiny brains can’t comprehend the concept of a fictional character having a different face. And while I don’t particularly care what Disney thinks about me personally, I do care about what they think about the whole of moviegoers and the possible precedent it will set for other studios/franchises. This shit has been happening in Hollywood since the 60s, if not earlier (the oldest recasting I can think of off the top of my head is “the other Darrin” from Bewitched) and as far as I’m aware, nobody’s head blew up Scanners-style.
There were two Lois Lanes in the 1950s Superman show, and that’s just the nerd example that I know about and comes to mind, so I bet it was more common than we think.
Two Saaviks in Star Trek II-IV, too.
And Kim Cattrall’s character from ST VI was originally written to be Saavik, as well. But she wanted to play her own character, so they filed the serial number off the character and renamed her.
People are having a bit of dissonance because people didn’t want Chadwick replaced but people were fine with Terence Howard being replaced.What people aren’t thinking about is that people wanted a woman to be Black Panther, so retiring Chadwick’s role was the easiest way to do it, and Terence Howard was a pretty terrible Rhodey written to be a bit of a whiny milksop that Tony walked all over (so not really his fault tbh) so starting with a fresh, self-confident Rhodey was something people wanted.
I think the Chadwick thing was also duly aided by the fact that he died tragically young, so people wanted to honor him by retiring the role, the same way some sports teams will “retire” the numbers of great former players. Additionally, Shuri had already been Black Panther in the comics, so there was an easy escape route for them. Terence Howard didn’t die, there was no tragedy that people would feel bad about if they changed the role, and that’s the same thing that’s happening in this case for Majors. He doesn’t deserve some grand honor by leaving the character with him, we all need to move on with a new face in the costume.
I mean Rhodey was recast in Iron Man 2 , and that wasn’t a problem , so why not now. Feck it just get Don Cheadle to play Kang as well .
Ask not for whom Kang klangs. Kang klangs for thee.
Doctor Bong?
As much as I’d like the “fuck everything, GALACTUS” option, recasting is more likely. Kang is the only thing they’ve properly set up since End Game.
I love the way Iron Man 2 handled the Cheadle recast.
Tony: “Hey buddy, didn’t expect to see you here.”
Rhodey: “Look, it’s me. I’m here. Deal with it. Let’s move on.”As for Kang, I’d vote to move on from the character. He’s basically been beaten by Loki and a bunch of ants already. I’m hoping Marvel is using their current pause to rethink the path forward and come up with something new.
The fact is, Marvel haven’t just got a road map of where the next 6 years of movies are heading, they’ve got half of that shit pre-vised, written and locked down.To switch up their plans would mean throwing away years (and a fucking fortunes worth) of work.Would they really be willing to do that?I fucking hope so, because it’s been obvious to everyone that whatever they’ve been trying to do with the overarching story of whatever fucking phase we’re in right now just isn’t working.They need to use this now disastrous Kang shit-show as an excuse to pivot and get their shit in order. And they absolutely, completely and utterly need to drop this multiverse bullshit. It was amazing when Spiderverse did it. It was brilliantly used in Endgame. It was fun when Spiderman did it. Multiverse of Madness (so, so underrated) proved how fucking ridiculous it all is (Wanda massacring the Fan-service that was the Illuminati is the best post-Endgame MCU moment as far as I’m concerned).Fuck the Multiverse.Let’s have some genuinely well crafted, standalone Marvel movies… but this is blatantly not going to happen.I am absolutely fucking dreading whatever they’ve got planned for the X-Men…
Hopefully they’ll do both. Recast Kang (Coleman Domingo?) and pick a new Big Bad, preferably Galactus.Just don’t introduce Galactus without the FF.
Better idea:
Krang.
I would have gone with Kodos ..but yeah thats good!
No one knows who Krang is. It would be a waste of time to talk about Krang on television. No more Krang!
Bruce Banner. Rhodey. Darrin Stephens. Recasting isn’t so difficult.
But was Kang really the greatest choice of big bad?
Can we just have High Evolutionary also be Kang?
Also, there’s no news update…? This is just the comments section stretched out into an article… sigh Barsanti.
It’s not realistic with sets having being built in advance etc. for them not to do Kang at this point. This is just Barsanti churning the shit out of this story.
I like the words “equally likely” in the headline. They are in no way equally likely.
Can we talk about how dumb Majors is? Grace Jabbari was a movement coach working on Ant-Man 3. Dude was one of the stars and was like “I’m gonna sleep with someone working on set haha” then he decided to beat her on multiple occasions and at no point did it cross his mind that this could jeoperdize his massive oppertunity….? That’s the thing this guy is the same age as me and I’m just like “dude how stupid are you?”
They should have just kept him and killed his character off in the kang dynasty. The quality of Marvel has been garbage after the infinity saga. I’m definitely not interested in watching anymore. If this was a minor character sure… But this was the big bad. Other than Deadpool next year I don’t see myself going to the movies for any other MCU flick
Scanning this, I initially processed the movie title update for the next Avengers installment as Avengers 5: The Hollywood Reporter and honestly was a little intrigued.
The ending of Loki never quite did it for me. The concept was good. The execution of showing him grasping like 5 or 6 of the “infinite timeline branches” as he walks up some magic stairs and then sits down on a throne forever was… not great.
I’d say recast, but the whole mutliverse thing is a bit of a misstep IMHO. In comic books, because they are such a perpetual medium, a multiverse is okay. In a film franchise it just steamrolls the stakes. In a single movie its fun, but whole really cares is RDJ’s Iron Man died, because Tom Cruise Iron Man is jetting around along with any number of other variants. That really came through in Multiverse of Madness. I think Marvel had really good luck in build an overarching storyline, but now they are overestimating how invested the average tentpole filmgoer is in seeing another, incredibly more complex storyline. The other thing with the Multiverse is that its kind of the biggest box. How do you top that? I mean you can do what the comics do and collapse them into a single universe, or a pair, but that feels narratively unsatisfying, and it’s not really going to repair the deflation of stakes.It’s too bad they biffed it so hard on Secret Invasion as a crappy limited series, because that could have been a sprawling storyline that would have propelled the IP through multiple phases. Now we’re left with Dr. Doom (who I am fine with, but feels very anchored to FF) or more space invaders. Or they could do an XvA storyline, which might be interesting if they were bold enough to do some interest PoV/moral relativism based on which movie/main characters were central to the plot.TL;DR: Marvel is bumping up against the incompatibility of taking comics-based storyline narratives to the screen, which always end up resetting to the status quo, multiverse sagas being the most notorious of these kinds of stories.
Secret Invasion is a great advertisement for the power of multiverses though .Marvel:” Yeah ..that all ..er happened on earth 56xy%^ II …so just forget about it.”
It should clearly be Dr. Doom, but Doom is no man’s substitute.
Only DOOM can save us! Vote Dr. Doom 2024!
I fully support recasting. As you noted, Marvel has done it before. I actually think they should recast Tony Stark, Natasha and Steve too. Like don’t bring in Wyatt Russell to be US Agent……just let Wyatt Russell be Steve Rodgers! Come up with some comic book way that works having to do with the multiverse and endgame time travel and have Wyatt Russell be right there with Thor. I just don’t think the MCU is going to be long-term sustainable when the Tony Stark, Natasha, Steve characters are perma-dead. The comics do this ALL THE TIME. They kill a character. They let them be dead for awhile. They show the team dealing with the loss and filling the gaps. Then – SURPRISE! – Cap is back! They will NOT be able to have a second iteration of the MCU on the backs of the Thunderbolts and Young Avengers. Those the the secondary characters and they belong on Disney + and sometimes a secondary character appears in a movie.And that’s before you even get into comics having soft reboots of characters and different voices and looks every time the writer/artist changes. The Bond Franchise has been recasting that role for 60 years and it works just fine. Each Bond is a little different, but the basic essence is there. So the MCA should recast Kang. They should also let Florence Pugh be Natasha Romanov and not her sister.
We’ve got to see at least one of them sooner or later
Given how Majors has one of the most anti-SidneyPoitier-ish faces in the acting business, you’d think Marvel would be glad to do the recasting.
Pfft. Any half-decent writer could come up with a dozen ways to go forward
Yeah, but you directed this reply at Sam Barsanti, so…
(ZING! HEY-OH!)
We get nerdy enough, Kang actually IS either Victor or Reed’s dad Nathaniel, maybe both. The most important thing is that John Krasinski is still employable.