Marvel has reportedly discussed pivoting away from Jonathan Majors‘ Kang and replacing him with Doctor Doom.
According to a recent article from Variety, Marvel Studios executives met in Palm Springs in September 2023 for the company’s annual retreat. There, executives discussed how to handle Kang the Conqueror, a character who was supposed to be the MCU’s next major adversary but whose future is now in doubt given Majors’ ongoing legal situation and upcoming trial for domestic violence charges.
Variety’s article states that executives have discussed moving away from Majors’ Kang in the next phase of the MCU and, instead, focusing on Doctor Doom, a notorious Fantastic Four villain.
This idea, however, is already proving difficult as Majors’ character has already been introduced and established in the Loki television series and 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Majors is also supposed to star as the main villain in 2026’s Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.
“Marvel is truly f—ked with the whole Kang angle,” one source close to Marvel told Variety. “And they haven’t had an opportunity to rewrite until very recently [because of the WGA strike]. But I don’t see a path to how they move forward with him.”
Another source close to the studio said that Marvel was already considering moving away from Majors’ Kang after Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania failed to make a big splash at the box office. With a budget of $200 million, the third Ant-Man movie made approximately $476 million at the worldwide box office when it was released earlier this year. “It gave people pause given that Quantumania didn’t exactly land,” the source said.
At this time, Marvel has not confirmed any plans for Majors’ Kang moving forward. Doctor Doom has also not been formally introduced into the MCU as of yet and no actor is attached to play the character; although, the MCU’s Fantastic Four reboot is currently scheduled to be released on May 2, 2025.
