As Marvel Studios is already seeing its fair share of headaches after the weak domestic box office opening for their latest pic “The Marvels,” another big one has sprung up. The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that director Destin Daniel Cretton has exited the next “Avengers” installment titled “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” and there doesn’t sound like an immediate replacement waiting in the wings for the MCU event film.

Jeff Loveness (“Rick & Morty“) had been tapped to pen the sequel’s script after working on bringing a cinematic version of the Kang The Conqueror (played by actor Jonathan Majors) variant to the big screen with “Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania.” There had been some rumblings this week from journalist/author Joanna Robinson (via ThePlaylist) on The House of R podcast that the writer was off the project and the studio had considered pivoting from Kang as the team-up’s next big villain.

Marvel has yet to officially comment on any changes to the film or its narrative direction.

This comes after “Ant-Man 3” had a bit of a disastrous response from audiences and the reason season of “Loki” attempted to distance itself from that film as well alongside Kang as the overseer of the Multiverse entirely. Potentially, allowing either Tom Hiddleston’s Loki to fill his spot as the villain (“Avengers: The Loki Dynasty”?) or Marvel looking to recast the role (Given Majors’ legal issues pertaining to domestic violence) with a big-name actor that could reenergize audiences. Thankfully, Kang being a Multiverse baddie with an unlimited amount of variant counterparts, a recast of the role wouldn’t be all that strange for audiences to accept.

This wouldn’t be the first director to exit a Marvel film in the development stage. Some of the others in the past include Edgar Wright, Patty Jenkins, and Scott Derrickson. There is an expectation his working relationship with Marvel won’t end as his Disney+ series “Wonder Man” is expected to resume filming as the strikes have been resolved and would likely continue to be a creative force on the previously announced sequel to “Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings.” As reports say Cretton will now focus on “Shang-Chi 2” which would see actor Simu Liu reprise the role of the Asian-American superhero.

“Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” was expected to be ready for release in May of 2026. However, if the film has lost both the director and screenwriter you could easily expect that date to be pushed back even further or end up replaced with “Avengers: Secret Wars.”

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER