Superhero movies are in a weird place right now, especially at Marvel’s house of ideas. Even as recent films struggle to land with audiences like the surefire hits of old, the studio is ready to look ahead with the heightened interest in what’s on the horizon. But part of that horizon includes navigating the murky waters around the next Avengers movie.
The Hollywood Reporter writes—as part of a larger piece examining Marvel’s current trials and tribulations, from the lackluster box office response to The Marvels to Disney pinning all its hopes for 2024 on Deadpool & Wolverine—that as the studio has pulled back on its plans to rapidly expand the MCU on screens big and small, breathing room acquired during the Hollywood strikes and by pushing back several films out of the immediate has seen Marvel cast a new eye over what was, at one time, the anchoring crown jewel of its cinematic future: the next Avengers movie, Kang Dynasty.
According to THR, Kang Dynasty is, well, no longer Kang Dynasty. The fifth Avengers film—which recently lost its director, Shang-Chi’s Destin Daniel Cretton, and gained a new writer in Loki’s Michael Waldron—is allegedly being refocused, with a new name to remove the titular big bad Kang the Conqueror from the title, as well as efforts to either radically minimalize the role of, or entirely remove, Kang from the narrative in the wake of Jonathan Majors being found guilty of reckless assault in December 2023. Marvel—who dropped Majors after establishing Kang as a major new threat for the MCU in both Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and the second season of Loki, just hours after his conviction—were purportedly considering pivoting away from Kang after Quantumania’s relatively soft box office, but now having formally severed ties with Majors altogether, the studio is seemingly going back to the drawing board in a major way.
It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve heard about Marvel pondering the future of The Avengers, arguably the most successful series of its MCU franchise. Prior reports investigating the precarious moment Marvel’s output finds itself in lately alleged that some plans for the next duology of Avengers movies—with a second film, titled Secret Wars after the legendary comics events of the same name—could feature ways to reunite the original team members and cast. Time will tell just what plans Marvel has for its future, but for now, it has Deadpool & Wolverine and the arrival of the First Family in The Fantastic Four to contend with. For now, the Avengers, and whatever grand threat they face, can wait.
This story originally appeared on io9.
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