Jonathan Majors is having an incredible year, from becoming Marvel’s next big bad, Kang, in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania to earning stellar reviews for his Sundance film Magazine Dreams to starring next month opposite Michael B. Jordan in Creed III.
And Michael B. Jordan, who directs Majors as well as sharing the screen with him in Creed III, couldn’t be happier to see it.
“It’s a beautiful thing to be able to witness this man with his hard work and dedication to his craft and his talent getting his flowers, because it doesn’t always happen like that. He’s having his moment, and I hope this moment is as long as humanly possible,” Jordan told MovieMaker in our Winter 2023 Cover Story by Trey Williams.
“To play a small part in that and be a part of his journey as I’ve gotten to know him and grow to have a relationship and a friendship and a brotherhood with him, I want nothing but the best for this man.”
Majors fights it out with Jordan’s Adonis Creed in Creed III, playing Damian Anderson, an ex-con and former boxing prodigy. Majors first broke onto the Hollywood scene in 2019’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco.
He told MovieMaker says that when they met, it was clear that the two were meant to collaborate. Creed III is Michael B. Jordan’s directorial debut, and Majors was eager to be a part of it.
“In our chat, it was so clear to me that this brother was one, ready, and two, had a vision that was going to not just move this franchise forward, but move the culture forward. And I just felt: How can I help?” Jonathan Majors says. “He was so vulnerable about his ambition, and the way he approached me was just so open-hearted. He told me the premise of it, but I wasn’t listening to that. I was just feeling him out and trying to figure out if this was something that he could actually accomplish.
“And quite early on in our conversations, it became clear to me that he was going to transcend what a directorial debut looks like.”
Michael B. Jordan on Directing Jonathan Majors
Something about Jonathan Majors that continues to impress Jordan is his work ethic — the internet was ablaze for a week after Creed III set photos revealed his ripped physique as Damian Anderson. His workouts also paid off Quantumania and Magazine Dreams, in which he plays a bodybuilder. (This MovieMaker piece predicts he’ll get an Oscar for the role.)
“Having a guy that’s willing to put in the time and the work to physically dedicate himself to a role and a character, to show up and put himself through that type of torture… Yeah, that boy was a workhorse,” Jordan told MovieMaker.
At times, the director would lose himself watching Majors work.
“Some scenes I was like, ‘Oh, s—, that’s right, I gotta shoot my side,’” Jordan jokes. “I just wanted to shoot everybody like they were number one on a call sheet.
What’s Next for Jonathan Majors
In November, he starred alongside Top Gun: Maverick actor Glen Powell in the Korean War drama Devotion. Magazine Dreams, directed by Elijah Bynum, is expected to make it into theaters late this year or early next. And Kang has a big future ahead in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: the next films in Marvel’s Phase 5 are building up to Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.
No casting announcements have been made, besides Jonathan Majors as Kang, who seems like a given. But there’s a good chance we’ll see Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, given that Kang will be directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Main Image: Michael B. Jordan stars as Adonis Creed and Jonathan Majors as Damian Anderson in CREED III, A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film. Photo credit: Eli Ade © 2022 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc.
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