Los Angeles, Nov 16 (IANS): Things have gone from bad to worse for Marvel Cinematic Universe, as director Destin Cretton has stepped down from the studio’s next ‘Avengers’ outing, ‘Avengers: Kang Dynasty’.

Cretton had been attached since last year, with the news announced on the heels of San Diego Comic-Con, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Jeff Loveness, who wrote the Kang-centric feature ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’, penned a draft of the movie, though it is unclear if another scribe will take a stab now that the writer’s strike has ended.

Though stepping down from ‘Kang Dynasty’, Cretton will continue to work at the MCU and is currently producing the ‘Wonder Man’ TV series as well as developing a sequel to his previous film, ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’. According to the news outlet, the director is also speaking with Marvel about additional projects.

Already reeling from a spree of box office bombs, bad reviews, and an increasingly alienated audience, ‘The Marvels’ proved to be one of, if not the MCU’s biggest flop to date. As projects such as ‘Blade’ are now being redone from scratch, the ‘Shang Chi’ director’s departure hardly bodes good news.

Actor Jonathan Majors is due to play the villainous Kang, a time-traveling scientist who possesses advanced weaponry and brilliant mind. One of Marvel’s deadliest enemies, the character in the MCU has many variants across the multiverse, although the actor’s legal troubles remain among the question marks bedeviling the project.

A version of Kang first appeared in the season one finale of ‘Loki’, with another serving as the antagonist of ‘Quantumania’. The final moments of the film revealed an entire Council of Kangs, featuring dozens of iterations of the villain played by Majors, who was central to ‘Loki Season 2’, though his future with Marvel has been subject of speculation as he awaits trial in New York on assault and harassment charges.