Marvel Studios Officially Pivoting Away From Kang, Decision Reportedly Made In Response To Poor Performance Of ‘Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania’ And Not Jonathan Majors’ Legal Trouble
Spencer Baculi
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And with that, the Marvel Cinematic Universe run of the Man Who Would Be Kang comes to an end not with a big-budget, multiversal crossover, but rather the tiniest of whispers.
A new report has asserted that not only has Marvel Studios officially begun to make a hard pivot away from the time-travellng villain as their cinematic franchise’s main antagonist, but that the decision was made long before the recent legal troubles of his actor, Jonathan Majors, and in response to the poor reception to to his debut outing, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Following months of speculation to the fact, confirmation of Kang’s abandonment by Marvel’s was first provided to the public on February 21st by way of a lengthy report regarding the studio’s future plans penned by The Hollywood Reporter’s Borys Kit and Aaron Couch.
Therein, the two noted entertainment journalists alleged that, per their sources, the studio has officially chosen to rewrite both Avengers: Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars in service of “either minimiz[ing] the character or excis[ing] him entirely.”
However, in a curious twist, said sources further clarified to Kit and Couch that contrary to popular belief, the decision to shift the MCU away from Kang was made not in response to his December 2023 assault and harassment convictions, but rather the absolutely abysmal box office performance of his debut film, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
“The first of the new Avengers movies, due out in 2026, was initially titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty but will be getting a new title to remove the character’s name,” the pair relayed, “though sources say that even before Majors’ conviction, the studio was making moves to minimize the character after Quantumania underperformed, grossing $476 million [against a reported budget of $193 million].”
Notably, Kit and Couch are not the first to suggest that Majors’ fate in the MCU was sealed long before he received his eventual guilty verdict.
Likewise relaying alleged information provided to her by a Marvel Studios insider, MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios author and The Ringer writer Joanna Robinson asserted during the November 11th, 2023 episode of the outlet’s House of R podcast, “I actually heard from someone recently – so, the screenwriter Jeff Loveness, who wrote Quantumania was supposed to write Kang Dynasty, I had it confirmed to me that he is no longer working for Marvel.”
“I asked the person why,” she further recalled to her co-host, Mallory Rubin, “and they said the reason why is that he was all wrapped up in this Kang storyline and that they are likely going to be moving away from that.”
“So no official announcement that Avengers: The Kang Dynasty will now be called Doom’s Dystopia or whatever,” she concluded. “We don’t know exactly what they’re going to do, to be clear, but I think that this just gives them the perfect opportunity to just be done [with the Majors situation] if they want to be.”
As of writing, neither Marvel Studios nor Disney proper have offered public comment on Kit and Couch’s latest scoop.
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