For months now Disney and Marvel Studios have been walking on eggshells by attempting not to comment or spotlight the legal woes of actor Jonathan Majors, who just yesterday was convicted of reckless assault in the third degree and guilty of harassment. This is from a two-week trial in NYC that stemmed from a March altercation between the Marvel actor and his ex-partner, Grace Jabbari. Sentencing for Majors will take place on February 6, 2024, and will shed light on what kind of consequences he’ll be seeing for his actions.

Within hours of the verdict being announced trades like The Hollywood Reporter learned that the studio had finally decided to drop Majors from his contract and sever their ties with him for future MCU projects. Majors had been playing multiple variants of the Multiverse Saga villain, Kang The Conqueror, and was expected to become a rather key aspect of both “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” and “Avengers: Secret Wars” as well. The quickness of the announcement was more than likely prepared months in advance and the studio had just been waiting for the trial’s outcome to make the firing public.

Kang had been mostly confined to variant appearances on two seasons of the Disney+ series “Loki” and played the main villain of “Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania,” the latter project not exactly supported by either critics or audiences. Recently there have been some creative hiccups on the next project said to feature Kang as Jeff Loveness (“Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania”) reportedly exited as the screenwriter on “Avengers 5” with fellow “Rick & Morty” writer Michael Waldron (“Loki,” “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness”) stepping in to do rewrites on the script after being previously assigned to “Secret Wars” too. This coming around the same time as director Destin Daniel Cretton also left the “Avengers” pic to focus on his “Wonder Man” series starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (“Watchmen,” “Aquaman 2”) and a gestating sequel to “Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings” led by Simu Liu (“Barbie”).

It’s clear “Avengers 5” is getting an overall but what that will look like isn’t being revealed officially and we’re still going to have to wait for more concrete details on how much they’re actually changing.

What remains unclear is what Marvel is expected to do about the character of Kang and if they’ll simply recast, given the Multiverse villain has many variants (“Loki” has established that variants can both look like the original character or completely different) allowing for a brand new actor to be placed in the Kang role without much narrative headaches. General audiences likely didn’t get too attached to Majors as Kang after the underwhelming reactions to “Ant-Man 3.” Plenty of names have been thrown around online as potential wishlist replacements such as Oscar-winner Denzel Washington (“Gladiator 2,” “The Equalizer 3”), his son John David Washington (“Tenet,” “The Creator”), John Boyega (“They Cloned Tyrone,” “Star Wars”), Damson Idris (“Snowfall”), and many others. Using the villain’s other variant aliases like Rama-Tut or Immortus could also be a way to distance themselves from using the Kang name alongside retitling the next “Avengers” installment.

Pedro Pascal is expected to play the variant of Reed Richards in “Fantastic Four” after we saw John Krasinski play him as the Earth-838 incarnation in “Doctor Strange 2.” So, Marvel isn’t above recasting these parts and the Multiverse gives them a narrative excuse to do it. We saw a backlash against Marvel’s choice not to recast T’Challa for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” after the sudden death of star Chadwick Boseman due to a private battle with colon cancer, which might have been understandable from a grief perspective among the director, cast, and crew. What I don’t think fans want to see is the erasure of black characters becoming a trend within the MCU and finding another actor doesn’t seem like that much of an ask since the Multiverse angle gives the studio a lot of wiggle room.

LOKI establishes that VARIANTS can look exactly like him or nothing at all. Kang being another force within the Multiverse, could have a new variant that arrives because of the events of LOKI's season finale and looks completely different. pic.twitter.com/NgO2obk6Qh

— Christopher Marc (@_ChristopherM) December 19, 2023

“Loki” Season 2 also just wrapped up and the ending of the series downplayed the 616/Majors version of Kang allowing for them to pivot to a new variant/actor or simply find another villain altogether, given Loki‘s renewed popularity having him potentially meddling with the Multiverse with his new gig at the TVA might be another way to go here.

Some online have convinced themselves that Marvel is going to “pivot from Kang The Conqueror” entirely to focus on a character like “Fantastic Four” baddie Doctor Doom because he had been an antagonist in a more recent comic incarnation of “Secret Wars.” However, given that the “Fantastic Four” reboot hasn’t even been established it feels odd that the studio would be rushing Doom to shoehorn him into two “Avengers” installments before he’s been properly fleshed out in the “Fantastic Four” films. While many still look to the comics for what might end up happening in the MCU, the studio isn’t exactly known for making one-to-one adaptations of the source material they ultimately do their own thing. It’s worth noting that we still don’t have official confirmation that Doom is even showing up or being cast for the Matt Shakman-directed reboot, Doom’s involvement has only been speculation going back to when the project was first announced by the studio and previous rumors of his involvement in other MCU projects didn’t pan-out.

Before the merger, Noah Hawley (“Legion”) had been quietly developing a solo “Doctor Doom” film for 20th Century Fox but seemingly has moved on with the latest season of “Fargo” and production on his Earthbound “Alien” series at FX/Hulu set to resume in the new year.

There are villain surrogate options for Marvel besides Doom such as “X-Men” Multiverse villain Mojo, who on the Fox Kids animated series (being continued via “X-Men ’97” on Disney+) kidnaps the X-Men forcing the team of mutants to appear on his interdimensional TV station in Mojoverse/Mojo World as a massive boost to their ratings. A plot point that could be easily applied to the MCU version of Battleworld given that the “X-Men” are expected to be coming to the MCU after the events of “Deadpool 3” which is said to involve a Multiverse/TVA angle to it.

In my personal opinion, a group of Multiverse villains perfectly suited for these next two installments would be The Squadron Supreme. Not only do they originate directly from the Multiverse in the pages of “Avengers” comics but including them may remove the need for variant/cameo overloads as Marvel’s version of Justice League would be a compelling pack of antagonists for our heroes to go toe-to-toe with and wouldn’t need to be explored beyond the two event pics. Allowing for some slightly more self-contained threats that don’t need to be established over time in a dozen other projects.

Marvel has yet to announce a director for either “Avengers 5” or “Avengers: Secret Wars,” but the current assumption is that we could end up seeing whoever is hired for one to shoot both films. The next film is slated to be released on May 1, 2026, but we won’t hold our breath that it sticks to that date.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER