Marvel Never Discussed Cutting Jonathan Majors From ‘Loki’ Season 2
WHEN JONATHAN MAJORS was arrested in March on charges of strangulation, assault and harassment, it put an abrupt halt to what had been a rapidly ascending career in the film and television industry. At that point, Majors had already released two of the year's highest-grossing films—Creed III and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania—and had been planned for the all-important "big bad" role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's "Multiverse Saga," taking over from Josh Brolin's Thanos.
Prior to his appearance in Quantumania, though, Majors made his MCU debut in the Season 1 finale of Loki, playing one (of many) variants of his villain Kang the Conqueror named He Who Remains. Majors' performance was electrifying, and both the cliffhanger of the show's first season and the Quantumania credits stinger (introducing another version of the character named Victor Timely) implied that the ascending actor could be in for a significantly larger role when the show would return for Season 2.
That has, indeed, turned out to be the case, but with the drama surrounding Majors' off-screen arrest and subsequent time in court (his trial has been repeatedly delayed and is slowly moving forward), it comes with much controversy attached.
At the time of his arrest, Majors had already completed his filming for Loki, but the rest of his future with the Marvel Cinematic Universe remains unknown (After his arrest he was also dropped by his management and PR representation, lost several film roles, was dropped by a Texas Rangers ad campaign, and had his invite to the Met Gala rescinded.)
But, as Loki Season 2 arrives, Majors remains a key part of the show, its story, and its cast. The show's executive producer, Kevin Wright, seems to put the main crux of that on the fact that this season is telling the story Marvel wanted to tell. "This is the first Marvel series to never have any additional photography," he said in an interview with Variety. "The story that is on screen is the story we set out to make. We went out there with a very specific idea of what we wanted this to be, and we found a way to tell it in that production period. It’s very much what’s on screen on Disney+."
Despite that, Variety pressed on the idea that Marvel productions do typically have some degree of reshoots. And so the question became whether there was any discussion of using those potential reshoots to remove Majors. And the answer was a resounding "No."
"And that mainly came from—I know as much as you do at the moment," he said. "It felt hasty to do anything without knowing how all of this plays out."
We still don't know how much of Loki Season 2 Majors will be in, but however much it turns out to be, we can be fairly sure, it was always the plan.
The role of Kang the Conqueror moving forward, though, whether the character receives a truncated storyline, a recasting, or no changes at all... remains to be seen, in this timeline or any other.
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