Jonathan Majors has reacted to those Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania reviews – but the less than stellar reception isn't bothering him. Majors plays Marvel's new big bad Kang the Conqueror in the film.
In conversation with IndieWire's Screen Talk podcast, Quantumania's 48% Rotten Tomatoes score – almost a franchise low – was brought up. Majors, speaking about reviews of his movies more generally, responded: "It doesn't change how I see myself, period. The middle of the sandwich is, it's all data. I'm a performance within a story."
He continued: "I will say to my team as we're leaving a premiere, if everyone's reading reviews, I just keep saying, 'How's the movie doing? How's the movie doing? How's the movie doing?' I try to clean my plate and take care of my part. And the response is, 'You're straight, you're good, they like you.' And then they tell me about the movie. Sometimes the movie is also on a level, sometimes the movie is – but then you realize, it's people… They have an opinion, and you always have an opinion."
After discussing what might affect critics' verdicts, Majors also referenced Quantumania's box office. "What does that [48%] mean when you've also got this XXXX amount of box office?" he questioned. "What do these things mean? And in my opinion, it's information."
At the time of writing, Quantumania stands at $419 million worldwide, which is significantly low for a Marvel movie, with a record second weekend drop of 69% – the MCU's worst ever.
Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness has also addressed the negative reviews. "To be honest, those reviews took me by surprise. I was in a pretty low spot… Those were not good reviews, and I was like, 'What the …?'" he revealed. "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."
But, after watching the film in a theater among fans, his spirits were lifted. "I'm like, 'Goddamn! No, [the reviews] are wrong! I'm right! MODOK is great!' I'm pretty happy with it overall, and I think I learned how to take a punch this week. And now that I learned that it’s not too bad, I can just get on with making things."
