Jonathan Majors has been dropped by Marvel and his character, Kang the Conqueror, will either be recast or written out of the franchise, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The decision follows Majors’ conviction of reckless assault in the third degree and harassment on Monday.
Majors portrayed Kang in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise, a character established as the primary antagonist for the current Multiverse Saga, much like Thanos was the keystone villain of the previous Infinity Saga. Majors debuted as a “variant” of Kang called He Who Remains in Season 1 of the Disney+ series Loki, returning in this year’s Season 2 as another variant named Victor Timely. He also starred in this year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania as the Kang the Conqueror variant, as well as the dozens of other variants in The Council of Kangs mid-credits scene.
At the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel announced the next two Avengers films would be called Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars, with plans to shoot the Kang-centric productions back-to-back. However, in the aftermath of Majors’ arrest and the Hollywood labor strikes, Marvel pushed back both films by a year.
The Hollywood Reporter says Marvel intends to either recast Majors’ role or redevelop the film’s story to focus on a different villain. Even before Majors’ conviction, Marvel tapped Loki creator Michael Waldron to rework the script for The Kang Dynasty.
In recent months, Majors has also been dropped by both his talent manager and publicist, and lost several other film roles, including an adaptation of the 2004 Walter Mosley novel The Man in My Basement and an Otis Redding biopic. Disney also removed his film, Magazine Dreams, from its release schedule.
Majors was convicted by a New York jury of reckless assault in the third degree and harassment. He was found not guilty of intentional assault in the third degree and not guilty of aggravated harassment in second degree. The charges stemmed from an incident involving his ex-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari, in March 2023. Majors will be sentenced on February 6th, 2024. He faces up to a year in prison.