The Kang Dynasty was dead before it began, according to Kevin Feige. In a wide-ranging conversation with the press, per The Hollywood Reporter, Feige came clean about Marvel’s recent struggles. Underperforming films? The result of too much homework. Blade stalling out? Ryan Coogler needed costumes. James Gunn’s comments on only making movies with finished scripts? Feige is “never satisfied” with his films and spends as much time as possible adding in extra shit, which he calls “plus-ing.” But Feige saved the most interesting comments for a man that he refers to as “The Actor.”
The Actor in question is Jonathan Majors, who starred as Kang in Loki and Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania. In the interview, Feige won’t say his name, referring to Majors only as “the actor” or “Kang actor.” However, at one point, Majors was to become Marvel’s new Thanos. That was until police arrested Majors for domestic violence about a month after Ant-Man’s release. The Actor has since been convicted and staged an unsuccessful comeback, but Marvel was already abandoning The Kang Dynasty, so don’t even worry about it. Realizing “Kang wasn’t big enough, wasn’t Thanos,” Feige claims he was reversing course before the arrest. The Fox acquisition provided him with an easy exit.
“We had started even before what had happened to the actor happened, we had started to realize that Kang wasn’t big enough, wasn’t Thanos, and that there was only one character that could be that, because he was that in the comics for decades and decades,” Feige said. “Because of the Fox acquisition, we finally had it, and it was Doctor Doom. So we had started talking about Doctor Doom even before we officially pivoted from Kang. And in fact, I had started talking with Robert [Downey Jr.] about this audacious idea before Ant-Man 3 even came out. It was a long plan that we had to take one of our greatest characters and utilize one of our greatest actors.”
Thankfully, Downey Jr. found it in his heart to accept a reported $80 million to return to the series. The Avengers: The Kang Dynasty became Avengers: Doomsday, and The Actor joins Terrence Howard in the MCU memory hole.
