According to the latest intel swirling around, Marvel may be forced to keep Jonathan Majors on as Kang against its will, which might be bad for the MCU but good for James Gunn‘s DCU.
It’s just a rumor, so don’t take it as fact just yet, but it’s being claimed that Majors has a clause in his contract that he and only he can play any and all variants of Kang the Conqueror — hence the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania post-credits scene. If true, this would explain why Marvel is dragging its feet in cutting ties with the controversial star and also why Variety previously reported that the studio is leaning towards replacing Kang with a new villain, e.g. Doctor Doom, instead of simply recasting him.
Clearly, something’s got to give, and Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is currently being reworked amid director and writer exits. If Marvel really is stuck with Kang for the foreseeable, though, then that means the DCU’s exciting new restart with 2025’s Superman: Legacy has the opportunity to swipe a huge win from the MCU. Namely, thanks to Nicholas Hoult’s casting as Lex Luthor, it could easily deliver the best villain of the current era of superhero movies.
Hoult, who auditioned for Superman himself before losing out to David Corenswet, was a bit of a left-field choice for Lex, but unlike Jesse Eisenberg, he’s been immediately and wholeheartedly embraced by the fandom. Gunn’s previous comments about the character of Lex, and admiration for Michael Rosenbaum’s universally popular Smallville incarnation, also indicate we’re in for a definitive cinematic interpretation of the Man of Steel’s main foe.
With Legacy being just the beginning of Gunn’s ambitious franchise plans, it’s easy to imagine Hoult appearing throughout the DCU’s Chapter One (the equivalent of a Marvel phase), effectively making him DC’s answer to Kang. Well, so far Kang has failed to make much of an impression, so if the Conqueror is staying for the long-term then Lex might have some easy competition to become the Thanos of the 2020s. He’s even got the bald look down pat.
Of course, if Doom does show up, that could be a challenge, but to be honest, the finest villain the MCU has given us of late is Gunn’s own High Evolutionary in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, so the odds may still be stacked in the DCU’s favor. Whatever happens, July 2025’s Superman: Legacy is coming long before Avengers 5 in May 2026, so Hoult has the chance to impress us ahead of however Marvel ends up course-correcting Kang’s dysfunctional dynasty.
