The next Avengers film, The Kang Dynasty, has lost its Kang – and it might lose its title next. More here:
On 18th December, Jonathan Majors was convicted of two misdemeanour counts of harassment and assault in his court case against ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari. Majors’ sentencing will happen in February 2024, and he faces up to a year in prison. Marvel dropped Majors from the role of Kang The Conqueror in the MCU immediately after the verdict.
Kang was posed as the next big bad, a Thanos-level threat that would tie the Multiverse Saga together. The next Avengers film, which is currently slated for a 2026 release, was subtitled The Kang Dynasty.
Marvel hasn’t commented on what it plans to do with the character yet, but it seems as though it’s considering changing the title of the film all together.
The Hollywood Reporter reports that, according to its sources, the film is “now being referred to as Avengers 5”.
Realistically, Marvel has two choices. The first one is to find a completely new villain for the Multiverse Saga. With a new Fantastic Four film in development at Marvel, many fans have suggested Doctor Doom as a potential replacement for Kang.
Marvel could also quite easily recast the role of Kang, who has appeared in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Loki season two this year. In Loki, Majors appeared mostly as Victor Timely, one of Kang’s many variants – and that’s exactly the loophole Marvel could use for their benefit.
As we wrote before, Marvel has already recast the role of James Rhodes, who was originally portrayed by Terence Howard and then replaced by Don Cheadle. Considering this is a cinematic universe filled with superheroes and funky creatures, we can surely accept that Kang and his multiple variants doesn’t look like Jonathan Majors anymore.
Another route could be to simply make Avengers 5 and 6, the latter of which is currently titled Secret Wars, into one big storyline, split into two. The Secret Wars storyline in the comics is pretty complex and big, so it’s not an impossible option.
Marvel still seems to be in a state of flux, but we can assume more news on the upcoming Avengers films will follow sooner rather than later.
