Jonathan Majors was previously announced to be playing a large part in the Marvel Cinematic Universe going forward. Now, however, new reports suggest that Marvel Studios didn’t initially plan to make Jonathan Majors such a large part of MCU Phase 6.
His character, Kang the Conqueror, was first teased in Loki. The movie Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania took Kang to the next level. It became clear that he was a central character throughout these Multiverse-adjacent plots, and that it would all lead into Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.
On the other hand, writer and author of MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, Joanna Robinson, made some interesting claims on The Big Picture podcast. While speaking on the show, Robinson alleges to have heard “it was not the plan to make Kang the center of everything” throughout the MCU.
This is said to have only changed because Marvel Studios execs saw “the dailies from [Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania] and after [Jonathan Majors’] performance in Loki.” The performances ewre apparently so strong that it made sense to center everything around Majors.
“I was told by someone who works for Marvel, it was not the plan to make Kang the center of everything until they saw the dailies from ‘Quantumania‘ and after his performance in ‘Loki,’ which was so strong they were like, ‘This is it. This is our way forward. We’ve lost our varsity hero team, but let’s set up around this guy Kang and this performer that so many people are reacting to.'”
She continued to reveal the following about Jonathan Majors and Phase 6:
“I don’t think you or I are very interested in saying what Marvel should or shouldn’t do going forward, but we know this is a huge problem for them that they are facing and grappling with right now. And what’s unprecedented in this for Marvel is, I would argue they have never hung so much of a franchise on one actor, as they tried to hang it on Jonathan Majors after his ‘Loki’’performance and his ‘Ant-Man: Quantumania‘ performance.”
Robinson further emphasized just how important Majors is to the MCU:
“I would argue more than Downey as Iron Man, more than Brolin as Thanos, that hanging everything on this guys is then going to pop up in all of their properties leading up to something called ‘The Kang Dynasty‘ has put them in a very unusual position. They don’t usually hang this much on one person in the way that they did here.”
There also seem to be conflicting stories as to whether or not Majors could be recast as the character following his recent controversies:
“And that has put them in the bind. We do not know what they are going to do. I’ve hear conflicting stories about they are going to replace him, they’re not even considering replacing him etc etc. But it’s just one more thing.”
As such, we’ll have to see how Disney eventually handles the situation with Majors. For now, it’s interesting to consider that they might’ve planned a Phase 6 that didn’t revolve around Kang the Conqueror as much. Hopefully we’ll have more details in the near future. Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional updates as we have them.