Following the announcement of a guilty verdict in his domestic violence trial this afternoon, Marvel Studios has fired actor Jonathan Majors. Majors was convicted on December 18 of two misdemeanor counts of reckless harassment and assault of Grace Jabbari, his ex-girlfriend. Majors had been cast as Kang The Conqueror, a major antagonist who appeared in two seasons of the series “Loki,” the film “Ant-Man: Quantumania,” and had been all primed up to play the next villain in the next ‘Avengers’ film, ‘The Kang Dynasty.’
READ MORE: Disney Unsets’ Magazine Dreams’ Release Date As Jonathan Majors’ Trial Approaches
Sentencing has been set for February 6.
Shortly after the trial ended, Majors’ defense lawyer declared that the actor would “fully [clear] his name” and continued denying all charges. But clearly, Marvel had been waiting for a decision one way or another, and once Majors was found guilty, it didn’t take long for the company’s spokespeople to let media outlets know the actor was out.
In the verdict, Majors was also found not guilty of one count of intentional assault in the third degree and one count of aggravated harassment in the second degree.
Major was arrested on March 25 on assault and harassment charges after Jabbari accused Majors of assaulting her in the backseat of a car after she took his phone to read a text message he’d allegedly received from another woman.
It is currently unclear what Marvel will do with their Majors and Kang problem, a PR difficulty that hobbled them throughout 2023 and has now grown into a significant narrative problem. There has been talk of recasting the role, and there has been talk of pivoting to a new villain, but no decisions have been evidently made. 2023 had already been Marvel’s most challenging year, and Majors’ conviction and the negative consequences that will come from it have only made it worse.
Marvel writer Michael Waldron (who is also writing the sequel, “Avengers: Secret Wars”) was recently brought on to rewrite the ‘Kang Dynasty’ in late November, perhaps signaling that Marvel was already beginning to figure an alternative strategy in case of a guilty verdict.
Majors had been one of the fastest-rising stars in Hollywood before these misdemeanor assault charges halted his meteoric rise and threw it way off course. Majors faces a year behind bars, and this sentence will clearly be a massive blow to his career. The whirlwind trial lasted only two weeks, and Majors did not testify. Instead, the jury of six heard from Jabbari, and her detailed accounts of the assault surely sealed the verdict.
Majors first broke out in 2019 after his role in the critically acclaimed drama, “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” which earned him accolades. The Searchlight Pictures film “Magazine Dreams,” a star vehicle for Majors, was meant to be released this month, but when it became clear that the case would go to trial, the studio pulled it from their schedule. The film is currently in limbo, and its final fate is unknown.