Jonathan Majors reflects on the bad reviews for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and why he doesn’t let it bother him.
Upon its release, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania became one of the worst-reviewed Marvel Cinematic Universe movies on Rotten Tomatoes. Reviews aren’t everything, but it’s not a great start to Marvel’s new phase. While critics took issue with many elements in Quantumania, most had plenty of praise for Jonathan Majors. The actor plays Kang the Conqueror, who is destined to be the big bad of the Multiverse Saga.
While speaking on IndieWire’s Screen Talk podcast, Jonathan Majors doesn’t seem bothered by the bad reviews which Quantumania has received. “It doesn’t change how I see myself, period. It’s all data,” Majors said. “I’m a performance within a story. One thing I will say to my team as we’re leaving a premiere if they’re reading reviews, I’ll say, ‘How’s the movie doing?’ I try to clean my plate and take care of my part. The response is: ‘You’re straight. You’re good. They like you.’ And they tell me about the movie. Sometimes the movie is also on that level, and sometimes [it’s not].“
Regarding critics, Jonathan Majors said, “It’s just people. They have an opinion. You always have an opinion. I’m no fool. I know these are people writing it. These aren’t my Yale professors or my drama teachers. These are people who have kids and they have a perspective, they have a religious upbringing or a lack thereof. They live in this town, or they want to be seen in this way or don’t want to be seen in this way. I look at the aggregate and, ok, 47. But what does that 47 mean when you also got this amount of box office? What do these things mean? It’s information. I am in the know. I won’t play myself. If you are a critic on a level, I probably know you and understand your politics.“
Although Quantumania‘s bad reviews don’t seem to affect Jonathan Majors, screenwriter Jeff Loveness recently confessed that he was shocked by the reviews. “To be honest, those reviews took me by surprise,” Loveness said. “I was in a pretty low spot… Those were not good reviews, and I was like, ‘What the …?’” Loveness added, “I’m really proud of what I wrote for Jonathan [Majors] and Michelle Pfeiffer. I thought that was good stuff, you know? And so I was just despondent, and I was really sad about it.” Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is now playing in theaters, so be sure to check out a review from our own JimmyO and let us know what you thought of the film as well.