Marvel Studios will no longer work with Jonathan Majors after the 34-year-old was found guilty of assaulting and harassing his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari, per Variety and The Wrap.
Sentencing for Majors is set for Feb. 6. The actor, who played Kang the Conqueror and his variants in Marvel Studios' Disney+ series Loki and February's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania movie, is facing up to a year in jail. He was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of assault and one count of harassment. He was deemed not guilty of two counts: aggravated harassment in the second degree, and intentional assault in the third degree.
Majors' attorney Priya Chaudhry released a statement after the guilty verdict was announced:
"It is clear that the jury did not believe Grace Jabbari’s story of what happened in the SUV because they found that Mr. Majors did not intentionally cause any injuries to her. We are grateful for that. We are disappointed, however, that despite not believing Ms. Jabbari, the jury nevertheless found that Mr. Majors was somehow reckless while she was attacking him.
Mr. Majors is grateful to God, his family, his friends, and his fans for their love and support during these harrowing eight months. Mr. Majors still has faith in the process and looks forward to fully clearing his name."
The Marvel Cinematic Universe had Thanos-sized hopes for Majors as an overarching villain, including naming a film for his character: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, set to lead directly into the climactic Avengers: Secret Wars. Those are currently slated for May 2026 and May 2027, though they've already been pushed back one year apiece and are subject to further change. Sources tell the Hollywood Reporter that The Kang Dynasty is now being referred to as Avengers 5. The movie has had trouble retaining personnel besides Majors, with Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton exiting last month along with Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness. The latter has been replaced by Michael Waldron (Loki, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), but no new director has been revealed.
Jonathan Majors factored heavily into Loki Season 2, though a number of viewers wondered if Marvel Studios was already showing reticence to commit to him as a character as the show aired in October and November, many months after his initial March 25 arrest. When the celebrated Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hit in May, viewers suggested Chukwudi Iwuji’s High Evolutionary character get retconned as a Kang variant and take over for Majors.
Whichever way Marvel decides to take things, there’s time to course-correct, with its only 2024 movie being Deadpool 3. Things will ramp back up significantly in 2025 with Captain America: Brave New World, Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts, and Blade hitting theaters if all goes according to plan. The amount of shows set for Disney+ is in flux, though Echo arrives in January.
