Rumor has it that Marvel is interested in replacing Jonathan Majors with Damson Idris.
Although not ideal, replacing actors in film franchises is a fairly common occurrence when circumstances warrant it. This is true even of the MCU, with Terrence Howard’s War Machine from Iron Man being replaced by Don Cheadle. Now, the MCU could be seeing another recast: in a recent episode of The Hot Mic podcast, Jeff Sneider and John Rocha discussed Damson Idris as a possible replacement for Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror in the MCU.
The show hosts noted that Snowfall actor Damson Idris is “the type of the person that [Marvel] may look at to replace him [Jonathan Majors] if that, in fact, happens.” The interview cited the actor’s upcoming co-starring role alongside Brad Pitt in an untitled big-budget F1 racing film for Apple TV+ as proof that he may be an actor on the rise. They thought that Marvel may want to buy low on Idris in the hopes that he blossoms into a superstar by the time subsequent films that feature Kang more heavily are released.
Damson Idris is an actor with a profile similar to Jonathan Majors, pre-stardom. The actor hit many viewers’ radars when he was cast as the star of the John Singleton-directed series Snowfall, which chronicles a young drug dealer during the burst of the crack epidemic in the 80s. The British-Nigerian actor also co-stars alongside Marvel’s own Anthony Mackie in the Netflix science fiction series Outside the Wire.
Jonathan Majors has been coming off of a string of strong performances and himself is an actor on the rise to superstardom after starring alongside Michael B. Jordan in Creed III and in the acclaimed but short-lived sci-fi horror series Lovecraft Country alongside Jurnee Smollett and the late Michael K. Williams.
Marvel Studios could be looking to move on from Jonathan Majors after the actor’s controversial arrest, and it seems like Marvel has a number of options. One of the opportune aspects of Marvel’s introduction of Kang the Conqueror and his multiversal origins is that they’ve already established that the character has thousands of Variants. It would be straightforward for Marvel to make some shifts in the narrative moving forward and have one of these Variants replace the current Kang the Conqueror, and use this as a chance to swap out Jonathan Majors for another actor.
Kang the Conqueror has been positioned within the MCU as the next big threat after Thanos and is set to feature heavily in a number of upcoming projects. Jonathan Majors first appeared as the Kang the Conqueror variant He Who Remains in the Disney+ series Loki before reprising his role as the main villain of Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania. With season two of Loki upcoming this summer after season one which left off with Loki in an alternate universe possibly controlled by another Kang variant, a Kang appearance in the series is certainly possible.
Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror will feature heavily in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, which is set to release in 2025, and 2026’s Avengers: Secret Wars may also feature Kang the Conqueror, as the character appeared in the comic book run of the same name. If this is the case, then Marvel will have to make a firm decision about Jonathan Majors and his role in the MCU moving forward. With a character with such importance to so many upcoming storylines, Marvel has a dilemma on their hands.
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