Jonathan Majors Explains Why Bad ‘Ant-Man’ Reviews Don’t Bring Him Down
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Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania star Jonathan Majors said the bad reviews from critics of his Marvel film “do not change” how he sees himself.
Majors plays Kang the Conqueror in the latest movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a movie that occupies the lowest rated Marvel Movie with a score of 47% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The actor, whose impressive year includes his roles in Creed III and Magazine Dreams, told Indiewire’s Screen Talk podcast this week that the reviews are all data and he understands he’s making a “performance within a story”.
“One thing I’m going to say to my team when we leave a premiere, when they read reviews, I’m going to say, ‘How’s the movie doing?’ I’m trying to clean my plate and mind my part,” Majors explained.
“The answer is, ‘You’re straight. You’re good. They like you.’ And they tell me about the film. Sometimes the film is on that level too, and sometimes [it’s not].”
Majors’ performance in the film was a credit to several critics, but according to Rotten Tomatoes’ “Critics’ Consensus,” the latest installment in the “Ant-Man” world lacks “the spark of fun that highlighted earlier adventures.”
The film otherwise has a score of 83% among more than 5,000 audience ratings on the site.
The actor told Screen Talk that he realizes critics are “just people” with opinions.
“These aren’t my Yale professors or my drama teachers. These are people who have children and who have prospects, who have been raised religiously or not. They live in this city, or they want to be seen that way, or they don’t want to be seen that way,” Majors said.
He added: “I’m looking at the aggregate and – ok – 47. But what does that mean 47 when you also have that amount of box office? What do these things mean? It’s information. I am up to date. I won’t play myself. If you’re a critic on some level, I probably know you and understand your politics.”
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The comments from the majors come as ‘Ant-Man’ sequel writer Jeff Loveness told The Daily Beast earlier this week that critics’ reviews surprised him.
Loveness, who said it got him to a “pretty low point”, revealed that after the reviews he went to a theatrical screening of the film and watched the audience laugh at jokes he had written for it.
“I’m pretty happy with it overall, and I think I learned how to punch this week,” said Loveness, who will write the screenplay for the film’s follow-up, Ant-Man: The Kang Dynasty.
“And now that I’ve learned that it’s not that bad, I can just move on.”
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