Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige reveals the one movie that helped Jonathan Majors land his MCU role ahead of his appearance in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Feige spoke highly of Majors, who plays the intimidating supervillain Kang the Conqueror in the MCU. According to the Marvel boss, he and Quantumania director Peyton Reed were convinced the actor was the perfect fit for the part after watching him in a 2019 drama. "What was it about Jonathan Majors that made him the right fit for this? Like you said, he's playing multiple versions of this villain…I mean, The Last Black Man in San Francisco was a huge reason we cast him. Peyton Reed was a proponent of Jonathan's from the very start," Feige said. The Last Black Man in San Francisco scored Majors plenty of critical acclaim for his performance as Mont Allen.
Majors made his MCU debut as Kang the Conqueror's multiversal variant He Who Remains in the Disney+ series Loki, appearing in the Season 1 finale. Feige knew from the outset that Majors could fluidly play multiple versions of the character. "We knew we were casting him for at least Loki Season 1 and Quantumania at the same time," he said. "Working with both the Loki team and Peyton and the Quantumania team, we thought Jonathan would be incredible for their different incarnations of those characters. And spoiler: He was."
Kang's Rise to Power in the MCU
Quantumania sees Majors star alongside Paul Rudd (Scott Lang/Ant-Man), Evangeline Lilly (Hope van Dyne/Wasp), Kathryn Newton (Cassie Lang) and Michael Douglas (Hank Pym) in the star-studded superhero affair. The movie sees Kang the Conqueror initially make a deal with Ant-Man as they both aim to escape the daunting Quantum Realm. However, Kang turns on Ant-Man and his crew, leading to a climactic battle between the two that's been teased in the movie's trailers.
Early reviews of Quantumania have praised Majors for his convincing performance as Kang despite the overall film being accused of lacking emotional depth. While time will tell how well Quantumania performs at the box office, there have already been internal talks within Marvel about potentially doing Ant-Man 4. Meanwhile, Majors will reprise his villainous MCU role for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars, which are slated for 2025 and 2026 releases respectively.
Quantumania is one of two major film appearances for Majors in 2023, with his other being Creed III. In the threequel, Majors plays Damian Anderson, an old childhood friend of Donnie "Adonis" Creed (Michael B. Jordan) who reappears in his life after a prison spell and challenges him to a fight, looking to take away everything Donnie has achieved in his career. Majors' other notable credits include the 2021 Western film The Harder They Fall and the 2022 biographical war movie Devotion, starring alongside Top Gun: Maverick's Glen Powell.
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania opens in theaters on Feb. 17.
Source: Entertainment Weekly