Audiences have been left more conflicted than ever after revisiting Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania on Disney Plus, with many struggling to reconcile their feelings on Jonathan Majors’ performance as Kang the Conqueror doing its level best to drag the rest of an otherwise-dismal movie up to his level.
In the immediate aftermath of the Phase Five kickoff’s release, Marvel Cinematic Universe supporters were hyped beyond belief for the fast-rising star to begin popping up all over the Multiverse Saga in a variety of different guises, a sentiment that not even the deafening apathy to greet Quantumania could silence.
Of course, there’s a reason why “hindsight is always 20/20” is such a cliche, with the actor’s career and reputation now lying in tatters after assault allegations were leveled against him. Marvel bet big on Majors as its next end-of-level boss, which seems to have come back and bit them in the ass.
With that in mind, it’s even more galling to discover Joanna Robinson – author of the upcoming MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios book – claim that Phases Five and Six weren’t initially planned to be so Kang-heavy, with the pivot being made on the strength of Majors’ work in his debut appearance.
“I was told by someone who works for Marvel, it was not the plan to make Kang the center of everything until they saw the dailies from Quantumania and after his performance in Loki, which was so strong they were like, ‘This is it. This is our way forward. We’ve lost our varsity hero team, but let’s set up around this guy Kang and this performer that so many people are reacting to.’ And what’s unprecedented in this for Marvel is, I would argue they have never hung so much of a franchise on one actor, as they tried to hang it on Jonathan Majors after his Loki performance and his Ant-Man: Quantumania performance.”
It’s beginning to look as though Marvel will be left with no other choice but to cut ties with Majors, and while hedging its bets so heavily on his shoulders only to see it fall apart is no fault of the company’s, it’ll probably ensure something similar doesn’t happen again.
