Rumours that Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness had been fired from his role as Avengers: The Kang Dynasty's writer first started doing the rounds last year.
The decision appeared to be made in response to the Ant-Man threequel, a movie Marvel Studios believed it had got right. Now, Avengers: Secret Wars scribe Michael Waldron (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) will write that and whatever The Kang Dynasty ends up being called (internally, it's been referred to as Avengers 5 since Jonathan Majors was fired as Kang).
Scooper Daniel Richtman has shared new details on Loveness' firing, confirming it was down to the response to his Ant-Man movie and not because Marvel Studios is moving away from Kang.
It's said that his version of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty had the majority of the Multiverse Saga's leads (minus Thor, for some reason) battling Kang's Variants on Earth. Despite that villain's presence, the story was supposedly largely grounded and light on full-blown Multiversal elements.
Waldron's vision is thought to be similar but puts a greater emphasis on the Multiverse before giving alternate reality heroes a much larger role in Avengers: Secret Wars.
As for the search for a new Kang actor, it's underway, but any sort of decision is likely months off.
We've already told you of plans to eventually reboot the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Ritchmain has learned it will only be a soft reboot with many of the franchise's newer heroes sticking around on a different Earth that's also home to both mutants and the Fantastic Four. Perhaps most intriguing is the mention that What If...?'s Kahhori is being lined up for a live-action debut!
Talking last year, MCU and Loki executive producer Kevin Wright weighed in on whether changes made to the next Avengers movies had any sort of impact on the show's second season. He also confirmed plans for Waldron to write both of those upcoming blockbusters.
"No, nothing affected our finale," he confirmed. "I think I said elsewhere earlier when the show was first coming out, the story that is on screen is the one that we set out to make remarkably so no one was coming down telling us we had to connect or set up anything for the future. It was sort of finish our story that we started."
"As far as where it's all going, I can't say and not because I am being coy, we're not a part of those projects," Wright said in regards to the next Avengers movies. "What I would say is, I mean, I know Michael Waldron is working on them and he loves obviously this world as he helped create it."
Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is currently scheduled to arrive in theaters on May 1, 2026, with Avengers: Secret Wars set to follow on May 7, 2027.