Avengers: The Kang Dynasty Lost Its Director, But It Just Took An Exciting Step Forward With Some Loki Talent

Kang The Conqueror in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania
(Image credit: Marvel Studios)

There’s no question that Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is one of the bigger upcoming Marvel movies that’s officially slated, but it’s also been going through some behind-the-scenes shakeups later. Earlier this month, Destin Daniel Cretton dropped out as director of the next Avengers movie, and it was reported soon after that Jeff Loveness was no longer writing the script. While it remains to be seen who will inherit Cretton’s directorial duties, some exciting news has come in that a Loki talent will take over on the writing front.

Michael Waldron, who served as Loki Season 1’s showrunner and wrote Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, has been selected to write The Kang Dynasty, per Deadline. It’s important to note that Waldron being tapped for this job makes sense beyond just his prior MCU experience. In October 2022, Waldron was revealed to be writing Avengers: Secret Wars, and now he’s tackling that flick’s predecessor too. So just like how Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wrote both Infinity War and Endgame, now we can count on the saga unfolding across The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars to be handled script-wise by just one person rather than several.

While it’s unclear if Jeff Loveness’ departure from Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is tied to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania underwhelming or for a different reason, Waldron is certainly a solid pick to take his place. Besides him already putting pen to paper on Secret Wars, both Loki Season 1 and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness saw him delving into the Marvel multiverse, which is sure to factor into both of the next Avengers movies. More importantly, the former project introduced us to He Who Remains, the first variant of Kang the Conqueror we met, so Waldron knows his way around this time-traveling menace.

Outside of the MCU, Michael Waldron, like Jeff Loveness, used to write for Rick & Morty, and he also created the TV series Heels, which was cancelled in September. Since The Kang Dynasty is still slated for a May 1, 2026 release, that should given him plenty of time to write the script while Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and the MCU brass look for a new director.

So far Johnathan Majors is the only actor officially attached to Avengers: The Kang Dynasty given that he’s the one who’s been bringing the MCU’s various Kangs to life. However, rumor has it that Marvel is looking to distance itself from Majors given his legal controversies, so if that’s true, it’s unclear if that means a new actor would be hired to play Kang or if The Kang Dynasty could evolve into a much different story. That being said, I suspect working on both The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars will also give Waldron an opportunity to write material for Loki Laufeyson again, as the Loki show’s emotional and wacky Season 2 finale saw Tom Hiddleston’s character becoming the multiverse’s new guardian. However, it hasn’t been confirmed if Hiddleston will reprise Loki in either of those movies.

We’ll keep you apprised on more updates concerning Avengers: The Kang Dynasty as they come in, including which director ends up taking Destin Daniel Cretton’s script and tackles the story written by Michael Waldron. In the meantime, you can stream the first four Avengers movies, along with the other Marvel movies in order and the MCU’s TV shows with a Disney+ subscription.

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Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.