Yesterday, news broke that Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Loki star Jonathan Majors has been found guilty of on one count of intentional assault in the third degree and aggravated harassment in the second degree by a New York jury.
The actor now faces up to a year behind bars and will be sentenced next February.
Hours after he was found guilty, Disney and Marvel Studios confirmed Majors has been fired from his role as Kang the Conqueror. It's now unclear how the studio intends to proceed, though several reliable sources have claimed Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is being referred to as "Avengers 5" internally.
That seems to suggest Kang will be dropped as the Multiverse Saga's big bad, though it's hard to figure out how the time-traveller can just be written out of the MCU and replaced so close to the next Avengers movie being released.
Common sense says a different actor will be chosen to play Kang moving forward; while the nature of the Multiverse and Variants means that can be explained in-universe, there's really no need when the change can be handled in the same manner as Mark Ruffalo replacing Edward Norton as The Hulk, for example.
Someone who has taken themselves out of the running, though, is Star Wars actor John Boyega. He's a fan-favourite choice to take over as Kang from Majors but, in a newly discovered response to a fan on Twitter/X last month, he made it clear he has no interest in doing so.
Boyega probably has little interest in joining another huge franchise, particularly one that's faced more than its fair share of struggles in 2023. This has been a rough year for the MCU, though we can't discount the possibility the British actor simply doesn't want the stigma that comes with picking up where Majors left off.
Not only will that be a big ask given how good he was as Kang, but there's bound to be a great deal of scrutiny surrounding whoever agrees to play a villain that simply hasn't struck a chord with fans and moviegoers alike these past few years.
Some would like to see Doctor Doom usurp Kang. However, we're hearing that any such move means Fantastic Four will have to undergo major changes and, even then, Victor taking centre stage is going to feel very sudden.
Who do you think could replace Majors as Kang?