There was a time when Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror was going to be the main antagonist of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Multiverse Saga. However, after Majors was found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of assault and harassment, he was fired from Marvel Studios, and Robert Downey Jr. was brought in to play Doctor Doom in Kang’s absence. However, on the subject of whether we could still see Kang in any of the upcoming Marvel movies or upcoming Marvel TV shows, the actor gave way more of a cryptic response than I thought he would.
If there was absolutely no chance of Majors reprising his MCU role, one would think he would just say that outright. And yet, when The Sun asked him at the Daytime Beauty Awards to respond to rumors about him returning to this superhero franchise, he smiled and coyly answered:
I cannot say anything about that.
Ok… that’s puzzling. Are we to infer that Marvel Studios might have changed its mind about including Jonathan Majors in the MCU, or is he just having a little fun with that reporter? It’s unclear, and Majors continued to be cryptic when asked if there was a Kang project specifically in the works for him, saying:
Well it’s a multiverse, so there’s always that. Always a lot of opportunity for that.
Jonathan Majors made his MCU debut in the Loki Season 1 finale as He Who Remains, the Kang variant who created the Time Variance Authority. Then he appeared as the “main” Kang in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and while that version seemingly perished while fighting Scott Lang, the mid-credits scene showed countless other Kang variants ready to wreak havoc on the multiverse, including Immortus, Rama-Tut and Centurion. After that, Majors returned for Loki Season 2 as the Victor Timely variant of Kang, as well as briefly reprised He Who Remains.
Had things gone according to the original plan, the many Kangs would have taken center stage for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and continued causing trouble in Avengers: Secret Wars. Once Majors was let go, the former movie was retitled to Avengers: Doomsday to reflect the new Doctor Doom-centric plan. However, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said in July that the decision to replace Kang with Doom had been made even before Jonathan Majors’ legal drama, as he and the other Marvel Studios brass realized Kang wasn’t a “big enough” threat.
While I doubt that Jonathan Majors will ever return to the MCU with the same prominence he had before, perhaps there will be a scene in Avengers: Doomsday that explains why the Kangs are no longer in the picture. If that’s the case, then Majors has already returned to the character, as Doomsday finished filming last month. Alas, we won’t know if Majors is involved in the movie or not until it’s released on December 18 on the 2026 movies schedule.