It’s been two months since Marvel dropped Jonathan Majors, although it already feels like much longer. You could say that the writing was on the walls long before the Marvel star was found guilty of misdemeanor assault, that Majors was a marked man, that his days were numbered. At least that’s how it felt, people were talking about his departure for months before it was all finally confirmed, so the question is, was Marvel already making plans to reduce Jonathan Majors’ involvement in the MCU and if so, why?
How much damage did Quantumania do?
One year later and Quantumania haunts Marvel fans to this day. The third installment in the Ant-Man franchise was supposed to be an epic adventure that would launch the MCU into phase 5 as well as officially introduce the Multiverse Saga’s big bad. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very good, in fact, it was downright bad, and as such, Quantumania has gone down in history as marking the beginning of the worst year for Marvel so far.
This was pretty bad news for Majors, whose debut in the film was greatly anticipated. Whilst fans singled out his performance as being one of the few good things many thought that his character was misused. Many were expecting him to kill Ant-Man considering his power level, but he got beaten by an army of ants and this was supposed to be the next Avengers level threat!
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel was making moves to minimize Majors’ role in future projects after the failure of Quantumania. Marvel is known to adapt and change course fast, it’s part of the reason the studio has thrived for so long, so this does make sense. But Jonathan Majors did well with what he had in that movie, can Marvel really pin the blame on him?
The trial
There’s no doubt that the accusations against the star damaged his reputation. When the news of his arrest first broke it looked possible that Disney/Marvel would drop him there and then. But they stuck with him, after all, he was in line to be the studio’s next big villain, he was the proverbial golden goose. He was able to keep his role as Kang/Victor Timely in the second season of Loki but found himself being kicked to the curb a little over a month later. Whilst there’s no doubt his assault charge led to his dismissal, perhaps if Quantumania had delivered, and if Kang brought in the fans and the money then Majors just might have gotten a second chance. That said, perhaps for Disney an assault conviction is always going to be a step too far.
His debut hadn’t been a box office draw to begin with, and now, with his reputation in tatters, letting Majors go was the most obvious choice for Marvel and Disney.
