Jonathan Majors Already Being Erased From Projects Following Domestic Violence Arrest
The Army has dropped all ads featuring Marvel actor Jonathan Majors after assault allegations.
Marvel star, Jonathan Majors, was arrested last weekend in New York on charges of strangulation, assault, and harassment in an altercation that involved a 30-year-old woman. Although the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania star’s lawyer says they have a multitude of evidence proving that Majors is innocent, the Kang the Conquerer actor is still being dropped from projects following the ordeal. Mainly, the United States Army has pulled all recruiting ads from a recent campaign that Majors was a part of, according to AP News.
Per the report, the United States Army recruited Jonathan Majors to help them make advertisements that would entice young adults to enlist in the service. Army leaders were hopeful that since Majors is an actor in popular movies like Marvel’s Quantumania and Michael B. Jordan’s Creed III that he would appeal to teenagers who enjoyed the movies and his voice narrating the two ads he was involved in would be enough to raise the recruitment numbers.
Last year was the Army’s worst recruitment year in recent history. The service had a goal of enlisting 60,000 people into its ranks, and it fell 25% short of its goal. Including Jonathan Majors had the service hopeful that it could make up the fallen numbers and recruit 65,000 people this year, which is 20,000 more than it accomplished in 2022.
The charges against Jonathan Majors have put the Army in a difficult position of either choosing to run the ads, despite the recent controversy or pull them and lose the angle they had hoped to use to gain momentum. It seems that the Army has chosen to pull the ads, even though Majors is innocent until proven guilty, a fact that Army leaders themselves have pointed out. Still, “prudence dictates that we pull our ads until the investigation into these allegations is complete,” an Army spokesperson said.
It seems that the Army would be willing to reinstate Jonathan Majors’ ads if the actor is found innocent, but until that happens (as Majors’ lawyer is so convinced it will), fans are standing by with bated breath to see what other projects the Lovecraft Country actor will be dropped from.
Will Marvel axe Jonathan Majors? After all, Disney (which owns Marvel) was pretty quick to slaughter ties with Johnny Depp, their pirate darling, last year when he went to trial against Amber Heard. And although Depp ended up winning his court case, the Captain Jack Sparrow actor’s relationship with the House of Mouse has yet to recover.
Jonathan Majors has already been introduced as the Big Bad for Marvel’s Phase 5, so getting rid of him could cause some major trouble over at the studio if they try to rewrite what’s already been put into motion. On the other hand, it would be pretty easy to recast Kang with another actor and call him a variant, like the different versions of the character that have appeared in comic books over the years.
Then again, Marvel might take a leaf out of the DCU’s book and keep Jonathan Majors on, even if he’s proven guilty, the way that Warner Bros. Discovery kept Erza Miller after their violent behavior last year.
The jury is still out on whether or not Jonathan Majors will stay attached to his current projects. Two out of five of his upcoming features are Avengers movies for Marvel. The other three features haven’t started shooting yet, so it would be pretty easy for those production teams to swap him out with a different star.
Only time will tell how the rest of this story will unfold—Stay tuned.
