The once-impregnable franchise has suffered through a series of critical and commercial quasi-flops. Rock-bottom was struck with the recent Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania: reviewers hated it and its US$474 million ($772m) box office fell hugely short of expectations.
“Marvel movie” has, more generally, become a pejorative: shorthand for a film that prioritises computer-generated effects over the storyline and “quippy” dialogue over good writing. When people say “Marvel movie” nowadays, they invariably mean cinema that lacks a soul.
But those challenges pale compared to the one facing Marvel and its boss, Kevin Feige, ahead of Majors’ court appearance on May 8 on domestic violence charges. Marvel has wagered heavily on Majors, a charismatic actor who had been expected to prop up the next “phase” of the MCU with a recurring role as mega-villain Kang.
Kang is the spiritual successor to Josh Brolin’s Thanos, the sensitive walking boulder with whom Captain America and Iron Man tangled in the later Avengers sequels. However, Majors’ character, first unveiled in the Disney+ series Loki, is more than a baddie. He was to be the thread that lassoed together the disparate Marvel films across cinema and streaming.
Jonathan Majors as Kang in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. Photo / Marvel
He has already followed up his appearance in Loki with a turn in the recent Antman (Majors more than held his own against established stars such as Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer). And he was due to be all over the upcoming Marvel slate.
He has been unveiled as the antagonist in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, set for release in 2025, and Avengers: Secret Wars, due 12 months later. Majors has already filmed his scenes for season two of Loki, expected on Disney+ this year. Should Majors become a persona non grata in Hollywood, the almighty MCU will have a Kang-shaped void at its core.
Perhaps that is why Marvel has adopted a “wait and see” approach. Majors has pleaded his innocence through his lawyers, saying he can prove he did nothing wrong.
“Jonathan Majors is innocent and has not abused anyone. We have provided irrefutable evidence to the District Attorney that the charges are false. We are confident that he will be fully exonerated,” his lawyer Priya Chaudhry in a statement.
Marvel is an outlier in biding its time. Majors has been dropped from several other projects, including an adaptation of the Walter Mosley novel The Man in My Basement, though he is still attached to Spike Lee’s Da Understudy and 48 Hours in Vegas, in which he is set to play eccentric basketball star, Dennis Rodman.
Majors has also parted ways with his high-powered publicists, the Lede Company and Management 360. His agency WME is expected to call a special meeting of its “client advisory committee” to discuss Majors’ future (WME has previously ditched Brett Ratner, Bryan Singer and Armie Hammer).
Meanwhile, the US Army postponed a recruitment campaign featuring Majors and fashion brand Valentino has “mutually agreed” Majors will not attend this year’s Met Ball.
Why is Marvel sticking when everyone else is running? The simple answer is that it has gone all-in on Majors as the face of the MCU.
Since the departure of Robert Downey jnr as Tony Stark/Iron Man, the series has suffered a charisma deficit. It has plenty of brawn (Chris Hemsworth’s Thor) while actors such as Rudd are keeping the quippy quotient high. But with Downey jnr’s departure, it has lacked that magnetic centre around which everything else could orbit. Majors was to have been that new lodestar.
“He’s the highest-testing villain we’ve ever had,” Marvel supreme Feige said of Majors in February. “Even without the effects, Jonathan is his own effect. He was working from the start.”
Why is Marvel sticking when everyone else is running? The simple answer is that it has gone all-in on Majors as the face of the MCU. Photo / Getty Images
But now he isn’t working.
Marvel has, of course, overcome controversies before. It stuck by Black Panther star Letitia Wright amid claims she had shared anti-vaccine views on social media (Wright said she had moved on from the matter).
And of course, its other great villain, Thanos actor Josh Brolin was arrested in 2004 for domestic assault at the home he shared with his then-wife Diane Lane. There is a certain logic to Marvel’s caution about the Majors situation.
The other factor is that Marvel isn’t a standalone entity. It is owned by Disney, a conglomerate which claims to be all about family values. Marvel isn’t alone in having to deal with problematic stars: Warner Bros is pushing ahead with its DCU Flash movie despite star Ezra Miller’s multiple arrests for disorderly conduct and burglary.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe was on shaky ground even before its brightest new star Jonathan Majors was arrested in Manhattan on charges of strangulation, assault and harassment. Photo / Getty Images
But of course, Warner hasn’t positioned itself as a fortress of wholesomeness. Disney stands for something bigger than itself, or so it asserts, and will be wary of getting tangled up in the fallout over Majors.
One theory is that Marvel is waiting to see how his court appearance plays out in May. The problem is that by then it may be too late. Variety has reported that “multiple alleged abuse victims of Majors have come forward following his March arrest and are co-operating with the Manhattan district attorney’s office”.
The one upside for Marvel is that, for all of Majors’ charisma, the actor isn’t irreplaceable. Kang is a multi-dimensional being who takes on different identities in different universes, so it would not be a stretch to recast him.
That is what Warner did with Johnny Depp’s villain Grindelwald, handing the part to Mads Mikkelsen for Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Marvel itself showed little hesitancy in recasting Don Cheadle as Tony Stark’s best pal Rhodey in Iron Man after Terrence Howard demanded more money to return to the part.
That was 13 years ago – when the MCU was in a very different place. But until the hearing on May 8, the question of whether it can conquer all with a different Kang is still up in the air. As, indeed, is Majors’ career.
What’s beyond dispute is that, with Marvel already in a period of uncertainty, the last thing it needed was a scandal around one of its stars. Overcoming this challenge may be a task beyond even its superpowers.
