Following a not-very-great week for Marvel, the box office flop of “The Marvels,” change is afoot at Marvel studios, and a pretty major one at that. Filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton, who was all set to direct the next major ‘Avengers’ movie, “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty,” has exited the film.
The news comes off the heels of the lowest-grossing opening for a Marvel movie ever (the aforementioned ‘Marvels’) and continued rumors that Marvel is going to step away from The Kang The Conqueror storyline because of various issues, including the legal drama surrounding Jonathan Majors who is currently the MCU’s Kang villain.
READ MORE: Marvel Studios Reportedly Moving Away From Kang Storyline & Going In Another Direction
Cretton already directed “Shang-Chi: The Legend Of The Ten Rings,” and it was based on the strength of that movie that Marvel tapped him to lead ‘The Kang Dynasty.’ As THR notes, Cretton had been attached to the big Marel blockbuster since last year at Comic-Con 2022.
Screenwriter Jeff Loveness (“Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania”) wrote a draft of ‘Kang Dynasty’ which centers around the titular time-traveling multiverse-crossing antagonist. Still, it’s unclear if another writer has come on to replace him following the WGA strikes. There had been rumors that Loveness was off the movie for months following the poor reception of ‘Quantumania,’ the first feature-length introduction of Kang.
No major excuses or whys are given, but Deadline says Cretton is amicably leaving the project to tend to his other Marvel projects. He is still on board for a “Shang Chi” sequel, and he’s producing the “Wonder Man” series for Disney+, which he co-created with Andrew Guest and stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in the title role. “Wonder Man” had been rumored to have been scrapped post “Daredevil: Born Again” drama, a series that was canned and started over with, but there’s no mention of the project going away in any of the trades.
In fact, Deadline says, Cretton is in talks with Marvel Studios about directing future movies (that might mean “Shang Chi 2”. Still, it does point to what seems to be the big elephant in the room subtext here: ‘Kang Dynasty’ appears to be in flux, they might change direction, and it would not surprise if they announce a new writer and strategy and that’s not making Cretton feel optimistic about delivering.
“Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” currently has a release date of May 1, 2026, but it will also not surprise us if, in the next six months, we hear word that the movie has been pushed for at least a year while Marvel tries to rally, rethink and re-strategize following “The Marvel” black-eye (THR says one factor for Cretton was the moving release dates as ‘Kang Dynasty’ was originally a 2025 movie). ‘Kang Dynasty’ is meant to precede “Avengers: Secret Wars” (ala ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame’), which is currently set for May 7, 2027, and like ‘Kang,’ it currently has no director attached to it.
Additionally, “Wonder Man” is being moved under the Marvel Spotlights nomenclature, and resuming is reportedly resuming after Thanksgiving (which presumably kills the “it’s dead” rumor unless the info is false). This banner was recently applied to the upcoming series “Echo.” It is meant to suggest to fans that it’s a stand-alone that you don’t need to know the complete MCU continuity to enjoy (which seems apologetic given that the entire MCU strategy and strength used to be about how everything was interconnected).
