Mere hours after Jonathan Majors was found guilty in December of misdemeanor assault and harassment, Marvel Studios fired the actor. So his MCU tenure comes to an end after this outings in Loki and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and naturally it’s been questioned how this franchise will handle the many variants of Kang the Conquerer in the upcoming Marvel movies. One possibility is the role will simply be recast, with Colman Domingo rumored to be the top contender for the role. As it turns out, Domingo once expressed interest in playing a Marvel villain, so could this strengthen his chances of becoming the new Kang.
2021 was a big year for the actor, as he appeared in Without Remorse, The God Committee and Candyman. Ahead of that first movie’s release, Domingo, who’s also well known for playing Victor Strand in Fear the Walking Dead, was interviewed by AwardsWatch, and towards the end of the conversation, he said the following when asked if he would accept a role in Captain Marvel 2 (which would come to be known as The Marvels) if director Nia DaCosta, who also helmed Candyman, offered it to him:
I've been part of The Walking Dead universe, but when it comes to Marvel or DC, I'm like, I think I’m ready now. I’m worked out, I'm fit... I think I want to play a villain. I just want to be a villain. I don’t want to be the good guy. I actually want to do some really dirty, nasty work.
If Colman Domingo is looking to do some “really dirty, nasty work,” then his wish would certainly be granted if he took over as Kang the Conqueror. In addition to being one of the Avengers’ greatest adversaries in the comics, Kang has been established as the overarching antagonist of the MCU’s Multiverse Saga, just like how Thanos served as the Infinity Saga’s big bad. Big things were ahead for Jonathan Majors in the franchise, so now that we have this reminder that Domingo is interested in playing a villain, perhaps this improves the odds of him filling those Kang shoes.
The MCU is certainly no stranger to re-castings, with some of the biggest examples including Don Cheadle taking over as James Rhodes/War Machine from Terrence Howard, and Mark Ruffalo taking over as Bruce Banner/The Hulk from Edward Norton. Kang, however, would be an especially interesting case given how Domingo wouldn’t just be playing one character, but rather multiple versions of the same character. In Loki, Jonathan Majors appeared as the He Who Remains and Victor Timely variants. In Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, he chiefly played a more traditional Kang, although the threequel’s end-credits scenes introduced many other versions of the antagonist, including Mr. Timely ahead of Loki Season 2.
Officially speaking though, it hasn’t been clarified if Marvel Studios will stick with its original Kang plans and find a new actor to play him or if there’s a major creative pivot coming. It is worth mentioning that in late November 2023, Michael Waldron took over Avengers: The Kang Dynasty scripting duties, and he’d already been tapped to write Avengers: Secret Wars. It’s entirely possible that Marvel may want to move away from Kang and find a new villain to head those next two Avengers movies, in which case Waldron has some heavy rewrites ahead of him, and we’d need to think of a different antagonistic role for Colman Domingo to tackle.
We’ll keep our ears open for any rumblings about what will be done with Kang the Conqueror next following Jonathan Majors’ ousting, including, of course, if Colman Domingo inherits the role. For now, Disney+ subscribers can easily stream the Marvel movies in order and the MCU’s many TV shows, while Domingo’s latest movie, Rustin, can be streamed with a Netflix subscription.
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