Avengers: The Kang Dynasty Should Have Opened This Weekend: What Went Wrong?

Avengers: The Kang Dynasty would be playing in theaters around the world today if Marvel Studios’ original plan for the Multiverse Saga had panned out. The Kang Dynasty was announced nearly three years ago now at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, with a release date of May 2nd, 2025. A lot has changed since then, and this may be one of the best lessons in why distant movie release dates should not be taken seriously. Instead, we’re now looking forward to Avengers: Doomsday on May 1st, 2026 — assuming everything goes smoothly between now and then. To mark this occasion, here’s a look back at the original plan for Phase Six and how things went off the rails.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe was already well into Phase Four when the company announced its plans for the overarching storyline known as the Multiverse Saga. By then, we had met Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) in Loki Season 1, and it was exciting to imagine how he would be built up as the main villain of this entire arc. The plans have shifted now, meaning Kang only appears in Loki and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

At SDCC 2022, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige himself took the stage to announce the plans for Kang. The story would have been based on a comic book storyline published in 2001 and 2002, written by Kurt Busiek with art by Alan Davis, Kieron Dwyer, Ivan Reis, Manuel Garcia, and others. Fans were extremely excited by this plan, and many picked up the comics in anticipation. Changes aside, the comics are still definitely worth a read.

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Majors was arrested in March of 2023 on allegations that he had physically abused his then-girlfriend in New York City. He was found guilty of harassment and reckless assault in the third degree by November of that year, and as soon as these verdicts came down, Marvel fired the actor. According to a report by Deadline, Marvel had already been referring to The Kang Dynasty as Avengers 5 internally by then.

Majors’ firing wasn’t the only issue complicating Marvel’s plans that summer, as the WGA writers’ strike and SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike both brought Hollywood grinding to a halt. It was during this time that the release dates for Avengers 5 and Secret Wars were both pushed back to their current dates in 2026 and 2027.

Writer Jeff Loveness was dropped from Avengers 5 in May of 2023, and rumors said it was partially because the script for Avengers 5 had not been ready before the strike began. When Majors was fired, director Destin Daniel Cretton stepped down as well, though he is still expected to direct Marvel’s Shang-Chi sequel in the future even though he’s now behind the camera for Spider-Man: Brand New Day. For a few months, there was no concrete news on the plans for these movies.

Doomsday Plan

We can only imagine all the scrambling and planning that went on behind the scenes at Marvel Studios during this time, as all the projects would need to shift away from building up Kang and start planting seeds for the arc’s new climax instead. At some point by May of 2024, Marvel had approached Robert Downey Jr. about the possibility of taking on the role of Victor von Doom to become the new big-bad for the arc. We now have confirmation that Downey Jr. said he was interested, but only if the Russo brothers returned as the directors.

The Russo brothers had previously mentioned that they’d be interested in directing the MCU’s take on the Secret Wars arc, so this seemed like a natural fit for them. Screenwriter Stephen McFeely — who co-wrote both Infinity War and Endgame — returned to write both Doomsday and Secret Wars. With all that in place, Marvel was ready just in time for Downey Jr.’s dramatic reveal at SDCC 2024.

Of course, those are just the plans for the Avengers titles themselves, but we have to assume that there were lots of behind the scenes changes to other movies and TV shows in the Multiverse Saga as well. The May 2nd release date went instead to Thunderbolts*, leaving just one more movie before Doomsday — The Fantastic Four: First Steps. On the TV side, we have a lot more on the schedule — Ironheart on June 24th, Eyes of Wakanda on August 6th, Marvel Zombies on October 3rd, and Wonder Man sometime in December. We then have Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 expected in March of 2026, and both Vision Quest and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man expected sometime in 2026.

There are still a lot of chances for big surprises and twists ahead, which is welcome in a long-running adapted franchise. At the same time, it’s nice to know that there’s a plan in place. Thunderbolts* is in theaters now, while Avengers: Doomsday is scheduled to premiere on May 1st, 2026.