There's a lot of speculation surrounding Marvel Studios' Multiverse Saga plans, particularly after the largely negative reaction to Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania earlier this year.
Along with Loki, the threequel was supposed to set the stage for Kang the Conqueror to be this Saga's big bad; unfortunately, Marvel Studios failed to take into account that having the new Thanos die at the hands of Ant-Man wasn't going to do anything to increase interest in him moving forward.
Then, there are the well-publicised legal issues faced by Kang actor Jonathan Majors. Depending on how his upcoming court case goes, his time in the MCU may soon reach its end (if it hasn't already).
Talking on The Ringer's House of R podcast, MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios author Joanna Robinson shared an update on where things stand with Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and confirmed Loveness is off the movie.
"I heard from someone recently...the screenwriter Jeff Loveness, who wrote Quantumania, was supposed to write The Kang Dynasty...anyway, it's confirmed. I had it confirmed to me he's no longer working for Marvel," she reveals. "I asked the person why, and they said the reason why is he was all wrapped up in this Kang storyline and they are likely going to be moving away from that."
It seems Marvel Studios lost faith in Loveness being able to continue Kang's story, though the bigger issue may be the fact they're considering moving on from the time-traveller altogether. The Loki season 2 finale potentially went some way in helping with that, and it would be easy enough for a new big bad to take credit for destroying the Council of Kangs. Heck, maybe Loki himself can remove those Variants from his new Multiverse.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton remains attached to helm The Kang Dynasty, but if the movie is undergoing significant story changes, then who knows if that's still the case.
Most fans would have preferred to see the filmmaker focus on a Shang-Chi sequel, but he's instead been working on a Wonder Man Disney+ TV series which, not that long ago, we heard had potentially been scrapped by Marvel Studios. There's still no official word on that front, though.
As for Avengers: Secret Wars, it was back in August we first heard writer Michael Waldron had been dropped from the movie. If so, the decision appears to be a result of the somewhat tepid response to his work on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
There are those already pushing for Loki season 2 Head Writer Eric Martin to take charge of penning both Avengers projects, but like Loveness and Waldron, he too comes from that same group of former Rick and Morty scribes hired by Marvel Studios when the Infinity Saga ended.
Still, considering the fact he's said to have taken over writing duties on Loki season 1 from Waldron, he may well be the right choice to get these movies where they need to be. For Marvel Studios, though, their best bet might be turning to Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
As always, keep checking back here for updates as we have them.