Jonathan Majors has finally revealed how he discovered the news that Marvel had fired him. The studio had invested a lot of their future in Majors, whose villain Kang the Conqueror was going to be the connective tissue across the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Multiverse Saga in projects like Loki, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and then-titled fifth Avengers movie, The Kang Dynasty. However, following a very public trial where Majors was accused of assaulting his ex-girlfriend, the actor was found guilty by a jury for one count of misdemeanor third-degree assault and one count of second-degree harassment, and within minutes, the news broke that Marvel had cut ties with the actor.
In a new profile on Majors in The Hollywood Reporter, Major reveals how he found out about Marvel firing him shortly after he was convicted. Shortly after leaving the courthouse in a black Chevy Suburban, a member of Major’s legal team turned around from the front seat and said, “I’m just gonna tell you now, that way you’re not surprised, and you can start processing it. They fired you. Marvel fired you.'” This marked the end of the 3-year journey within the MCU for Majors, who was first cast as Kang the Conqueror for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in September 2020 before appearing in a surprise role in the Loki Season 1 finale in July 2021.

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Marvel Studios seemingly was following Major’s case very closely, as the news of his firing came moments after the actor was found guilty. It is unclear if the actors’ representation found out when the press did or shortly before, but it appears to have been close together. And yet, Major’s actual removal from the MCU was slow, as for most of 2023, it was a subject hanging over every topic of conversation around the future of the franchise. However, Marvel Studios was making moves behind the scenes and had planned to pivot to Doctor Doom following Majors’s arrest and the lukewarm reception to the character following Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
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Marvel Studios has now seemingly all but dropped Kang the Conqueror in favor of Doctor Doom, even renaming Avengers: The Kang Dynasty to Avengers: Doomsday. Most references to Kang have now primarily been downplayed, with the Loki Season 2 finale episode giving a sort of handwave explanation to how the TVA is dealing with his variants across the multiverse. This likely meant that the Council of Kang teased at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania would be largely ignored. The only hint at any mention of Kang the Conqueror since was in What If…? Season 3 when Captain Carter and her team, The Exiles, were riding around in one of Kang’s time chairs.
Instead of building the MCU’s Multiverse Saga around a group of central heroes, they decided to do the inverse and make one villain the star of the show, with Kang the Conqueror being the element that would connect the seemingly disconnected plot threads across the recent MCU titles. The MCU has felt directionless because it hung on the Kang plot thread, a plan that Marvel has scrapped. While Marvel’s decision to bet it all on Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark for the first Iron Man paid off, the decision to do the same with Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror backfired in a way that the franchise is still recovering from.
Source: THR