Marvel's Avengers: The Kang Dynasty Assembles Doctor Strange 2 And Loki Writer
Michael Waldron is having a good day. According to Deadline, the screenwriter is now set to write Marvel Studios' "Avengers: The Kang Dynasty." Waldron, of course, is currently also set to write the script for "Avengers: Secret Wars," the sequel to "The Kang Dynasty." That movie will mark the grand finale of the current Multiverse Saga that connects Phases 4, 5, and 6 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Waldron will be replacing Jeff Loveness, who was assumed to have left the project as Destin Daniel Cretton ("Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings") departed as a director earlier this month. As of now, neither of these next two "Avengers" movies has a director yet, but having Waldron on board to write both does seem like a smart choice to give them a more cohesive tone and structure.
Waldron is a Marvel veteran at this point, having previously created the TV show "Loki," and worked on the show for its first season. He also wrote "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" after its original writers, Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, departed the film and were replaced by Waldron and director Sam Raimi.
While "Doctor Strange 2" wasn't exactly a smash hit (and what did work in the movie worked because of Raimi's visual eye), the first season of "Loki" remains one of the best things Marvel has ever done and the MCU's best show to date, so this could be a promising hire.
All roads lead to Kang
The MCU is currently in a very difficult place. For one thing, their last few releases ("Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" notwithstanding) have severely underperformed, to the point where Disney delayed most of the Phase 5 slate — leaving only "Deadpool 3" in place for 2024. (The fact that the AMPTP refused to give the writers and actors a fair contract, necessitating a work stoppage that lasted months, didn't help, either.) Then there's the controversy surrounding Jonathan Majors after he was accused of assault earlier this year. Given that Majors' Kang is the titular character, the studio needs to handle this situation delicately. It doesn't help that Kang's big movie appearance in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" was rather underwhelming, and that film was not very financially successful.
It seems Marvel is at least sticking with the title (so far), meaning Kang won't disappear entirely. Still, there are options. In addition to just recasting the role, we could also see Kang the Conqueror replaced with Doctor Doom. Doom is another iconic villain, one as powerful and smart as Kang, and who greatly ties into "Secret Wars," the other film Waldron is writing. This would help tie things into "Fantastic Four" ahead of that movie's release.
Kang is clearly a complicated, difficult issue, and this movie has a long and uphill battle. That said, Michael Waldron has proven capable of at least delivering a solid, if safe, script under difficult circumstances before, so we're crossing our fingers that the next two "Avengers" films might be a return to Marvel's previous creative glory days.