The studio’s golden box office aura has been dented, but chief architect Kevin Feige isn’t scrapping his years-long cinematic universe plan, just refining it: “They’re not going to give up,” says an insider.
...though sources say that even before Majors’ conviction, the studio was making moves to minimize the character after Quantumania underperformed, grossing $476 million
Jonathan Majors-related stuff aside, this sentence makes me shake my head.
Why does it seem like Hollywood always takes the wrong lesson from box office results? Quantumania isn't well received, and instead of assuming it's because of the bad script or bad story or rushed CGI, their impulse is to retool their entire franchise to minimize a character? Especially a character who people were generally into (at that time, at least...again, Majors stuff aside).
People disliked Quantamania not because of Kang, people disliked it because it wasn't a good movie. Maybe if you tie good stories and good filmmaking to your multi-billion dollar franchise and stop plopping out half thought out turds, then people will go see your movie.