Marvel made Jonathan Majors the centrepiece of its Multiverse Saga: he played Kang in the Loki season one finale, headlined Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania as the villain, returned in Loki season two, and was next set to lead Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Every version of the saga's main antagonist was the same actor.
On 18 December 2023 a jury convicted Majors of two misdemeanour counts of harassment and assault against his former girlfriend. Marvel parted ways the same day. His manager and publicist dropped him, the US Army and Texas Rangers pulled ad campaigns featuring him, and Searchlight pulled his film Magazine Dreams from its release calendar.
The saga's plan died with the contract. The Kang Dynasty was removed from Marvel's slate, and at Comic-Con in July 2024 the studio announced Avengers: Doomsday (May 2026) with Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom — the villain arc built across three projects was scrapped and rebuilt around a new face. The bet was already wobbling: Quantumania, made on a reported $214 million budget, had grossed about $476 million worldwide — a weak result for a film meant to launch the saga's finale.
Marvel scrapped the Kang saga after Majors' conviction, losing a $214M film and three projects of setup, and rebuilt around Doctor Doom.
Marvel put its whole next saga on one person: every Kang on screen was the same actor, so there was no quiet recast without rebuilding the plan.
The studio had no contingency for a lead-actor catastrophe — the verdict landed in a day and the arc went with it.
The launchpad film had already underperformed: the strategy was showing weakness before the person collapsed.
When a multi-film plan lives in one actor, the studio's risk lives there too — Marvel had three projects of Kang setup and nothing to fall back on the day the verdict landed.
Marvel rebuilt its next two Avengers films around Doctor Doom; Kang Dynasty was dropped from the release slate entirely.
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