Majors Allegations Adds More Challenges for MCU’s Future
Majors at a premiere of the new Ant-Man film this year. Credit: Eva Rinaldi via Flickr
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has dominated the film industry and pop culture of the 21st century. For the over 31 films released so far, they have raked in over $28 billion and made the cast of characters, ranging from the recognizable Captain America to mostly unknown Star-Lord, cinematic icons.
In 2021, Marvel began rolling out its films again after the COVID-19 pandemic. “Black Widow” was the first released. It was one of the most forgettable; a prequel movie focused on a dead character to kick off the phase was undoubtedly a strange idea. Since then, the MCU has had an uneven reception. Although films such as “Shang-Chi” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” got a positive reception, other films such as “Thor: Love and Thunder,” “Eternals” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” have received mixed to poor reception and have brought on an online debate of where this franchise’s direction is heading.
These recent films all suffer from many of the same complaints: CGI that somehow looks worse than entries that can out years ago, oversaturation of content due to a mass amount of shows, lack of exciting buildup and superhero fatigue. Furthermore, not only does the problem lie in reception, but in the box office, as recent entries have brought in diminishing cash. For example, “Eternals,” on a budget of $200 million, only made around $402 million (roughly grossing only $2 million), and the most recent release “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” also with a budget of $200 million only brought in around $474 million.
For the past years, these different factors have brought on much debate about the MCU and the current state of superhero movies. With the endless tide of superhero movies coming out, is there a breaking point?
To add onto all of this, Marvel now faces another problem with the case of the actor Jonathan Majors. Majors is a relatively new face on the big screen, as he has risen to prominence in the past five years, beginning with 2019’s “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” to now slowly becoming a lead actor with roles in “Creed III” and the MCU’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” For the MCU, he is the new main villain, Kang the Conqueror, who will be one of the driving forces of this saga, including the next two “Avengers” films.
On March 25, Majors was arrested in New York City for a domestic dispute with his girlfriend. He was charged with assault, strangulation and harassment while she was admitted to a local hospital. Online reaction was a mixture of scathing and confusion, with many disappointed that a newcomer who has been given such great career opportunities is involved in a potential crime.
Majors’ lawyer has maintained his innocence, “We are quickly gathering and presenting evidence to the District Attorney with the expectation that all charges will be dropped imminently.” Furthermore, on March 30, Majors’ lawyer released text messages between Majors and his girlfriend; although these messages’ purpose was to give more evidence for Majors’ innocence, it has done the exact opposite. The texts that were released have statements from Majors’ girlfriend, such as “I told them it was my fault for trying to grab your phone.” Overall, these texts paint Majors much worse in the public eye. Since the initial news, more allegations of abuse have come forward, and multiple women are working with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Due to all of these allegations, Majors’ career has suffered immensely as he has been dropped from multiple projects. These range from an army ad that stopped airing on television, which was part of a $117 million recruiting campaign, a scheduled Texas Rangers ad campaign, getting recast in the upcoming film “The Man in my Basement” and dropped by his PR and management team. Nonetheless, Marvel has been silent this entire time, as Majors is going to be in “Loki” Season 2 coming out this summer, adding more pressure to see their response.
This all leads to the question: what will Marvel do? Well, thankfully in this series of MCU films, they have introduced the Multiverse in which there are different versions of characters who can be played by different actors. Problem solved; recast, right? However, in almost a sick ridiculous joke, every version of Kang looks like Majors making the recast even trickier to pull off. Furthermore, Marvel has already paid Majors an absurd amount of money to play a role in the upcoming “Avengers” films, a whopping $20 million.
There is a slight chance that Marvel may just do nothing; however, plenty of actors and directors in the past have not been affected by similar allegations or even criminal convictions in the past. The biggest example is the infamous Ezra Miller, who, after a series of scandals, is still starring in The Flash, set to release this June. However, if the allegations are true and Majors did commit these crimes, the backlash against Marvel may be another obstacle they don’t want to face. Combining Majors’ allegations with diminishing returns on their films, Marvel’s entertainment empire may not be the unstoppable force it once was.