Let it first be established that the tweet you’re about to see should not be considered as grounded in reality, and in fact comes from a mostly carbless X account whose findings are constructed from online anecdotes and whatever possibilities might get them views, and held together with the media literacy equivalent of Elmer’s Glue and a single paperclip. I’m entirely using the tweet as an in to talk about how insanely brainless Marvel‘s entire approach to and detachment from Kang was.
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— Marvel Updates (@Marvel_Updates_) October 8, 2024Marvel Studios decided to drop the Kang storyline because there was not a lot of hype surrounding the character
•So they went with Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom to get people more excited for the upcoming ‘AVENGERS’ films
(Source:@DanielRPK) pic.twitter.com/aKltMNyvB1
For the record, here’s the “source”:
The reason they decided to drop Kang wasn’t just because of Majors. When they were looking to recast the role they realized there wasn’t much hype around the character so they went with a gimmick casting of RDJ as Doom to get people excited for the Avengers filma. To be fair I… https://t.co/glX0UZWgRb
— Daniel Richtman (@DanielRPK) October 8, 2024
Moving on, though, let’s pretend for a moment that the lack of hype surrounding Kang was the reason that the character was abandoned, rather than the untimely nosedive of Jonathan Majors‘ career. In either scenario, Marvel would have been prioritizing market-driven storytelling, which is precisely as dystopian as it sounds.
Look at the patterns that have cropped up since Spider-Man: No Way Home; a film that everyone lost their minds over because of Andrew Garfield’s and Tobey Maguire’s presence. Except, no one appreciated their presence because of the very palpable narrative heft they gave to a distinctly Spider-Man story, but instead because of some esoteric-yet-banal combination of nostalgia and brand recognition. What theatrical release happened next? Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, John Krasinski and all.
Enter Jonathan Majors, an absolute acting powerhouse whose range, gravitas, and then-popularity opened up astounding possibilities for a character like Kang. He debuts as a variant of the character in the first season of Loki in the summer of 2021, and less than a year later, we find out that The Marvels and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania have swapped release dates, putting Quantumania at Feb. 17 and The Marvels at July 28 (prior to the delay). And who’s the main villain of Quantumania? Kang the Conqueror.
Fast forward to the spring of 2023, and Majors becomes the center of a domestic violence scandal that harbors a death grip on the public’s attention. Is Majors’ tarnished image still the pillar that the Multiverse Saga wants to build itself upon? We don’t get a straight answers for months upon months upon months, and then we finally find out that Majors has been dropped by Marvel shortly after his guilty verdict comes through.
Marvel, for some reason, decides not to recast a character that has been so engrained in the identity of Majors for years at this point. Go figure. But without a Thanos-level threat to build up to, they’re now in even more narrative hot water than they already were. And by the time we got to Deadpool & Wolverine, it became clear that Marvel has been treating its films like brands rather than stories; the only difference now was that Marvel was consciously leaning into its brand, and seemingly abandoning stories altogether.
But there was still the problem of having no Thanos-level threat to build another Infinity Saga–Endgame event around, and with Marvel now fully committing to commodification, there was only one route that made sense; rope the one and only Robert Downey Jr. back into the franchise as Doctor Doom. Cue the deafening cheers from Hall H. Mission preemptively accomplished.
So maybe Marvel dropped Kang because of Majors’ arrest, or maybe it was because there wasn’t a lot of hype (which, let’s face it, is almost certainly nonsense), or maybe it was some other third thing. What’s beyond clear, however, is that Marvel’s failures entirely have to do with its films existing for brand recognition and commodification before they exist for themselves, and if 2025 doesn’t turn things around, then this aforementioned dystopia might only be in its early stages.
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