In the first two seasons of Marvel Studios’s “Loki” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” actor Jonathan Majors portrayed Kang and his variants.
The plan was for Jonathan Majors’s character, Kang the Conqueror, to take Thanos’ place as the next major antagonist in the MCU but Majors ran into legal problems after the movie came out.
His ex-partner Grace Jabbari accused him of harassment and abuse.
It was also claimed that insiders who worked together previously with Majors verified reports of his unsettling conduct on set.
On the other hand, Marvel Studios decided to wait for the court’s decision, probably to prevent a recurrence of the scandal surrounding Johnny Depp and the Pirates of the Caribbean incident.
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However, as the legal drama played out, his talent agency decided to drop him and distance themselves from future projects and commercials.
Majors was found guilty and given a community service-plus probation sentence once the conviction was rendered.
At that point, it was evident that he would not be taking on the role again, despite the hopes of certain fans that Kang’s story would have continued.
But a lot of people who cared about Kang’s plot were left asking why the character wasn’t just recast.
But a few months ago, Marvel Studios announced at San Diego Comic-Con that “Avengers: Kang Dynasty” would become “Avengers” and that Robert Downey Jr.’s character, Doctor Doom, would make a reappearance.
Not everyone was happy to see Doomsday, or Robert Downey Jr., in the role, and the announcement infuriated certain Kang fans.
But a known industry insider Daniel Richtman has justified Marvel Studios not recasting.
As per his statement, the allure of Kang is found in his multiple variations throughout the Multiverse; there’s no indication that these variations have to be exact replicas.
Recasting Kang would be one of the easiest Marvel Studios options but as we’ve already believed, the studio decided to give up on Majors for other reasons besides his legal issues.
Public opinion also had a big impact because Kang was viewed as a dull and badly written villain.
Then he continued, saying that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania got mostly bad reviews and did poorly at the box office.
The fact that Ant-Man was the only one to defeat Kang in the movie disappointed a lot of people.
There wasn’t much faith that Kang could thrill people in the same way that Thanos did.
The studio was thinking about replacing Kang as the antagonist with another character even before Majors’ verdict.
Richtman’s comments make a lot of sense if you think about it.
Marvel Studios felt that Major’s supporters weren’t as strong as previous villains’. So even if he was found not guilty, there was still a good chance he would be ousted from his position as the main antagonist and reduced to a supporting role.
