Jonathan Majors Reacts to Negative 'Ant-Man' Reviews: 'It's Just People, They Have an Opinion'

Jonathan Majors' performance in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has been cited as one of the movie's highlights

Jonathan Majors attends the "Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania" UK Gala Screening at BFI IMAX Waterloo on February 16, 2023 in London, England.
Photo: Mike Marsland/WireImage

Jonathan Majors says less-than-favorable Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania reviews don't "change how I see myself, period."

While appearing on IndieWire's Screen Talk podcast Friday, Majors, 33, downplayed the film's negative reviews — the movie carries a 48% approval among Rotten Tomatoes critics — and said he does not take reactions too close to heart.

"I'm a performance within a story," Majors said of how he relates to the movie's reviews. "One thing I will say to my team as we're leaving a premiere as they're reading reviews — I just keep saying 'How's the movie doing? How's the movie doing?' "

"I try to clean my plate and take care of my part," he added. "The response is: 'You're straight. You're good. They like you.' And they tell me about the movie, and sometimes the movie is also on that level, and sometimes [it is not.]"

The Last Black Man in San Francisco actor went on to explain that all critics "have an opinion."

Jonathan Majors as Kang The Conqueror in Marvel Studios' ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA.
Jay Maidment/MARVEL

"It's just people. They have an opinion. You always have an opinion… I'm no fool, I got 33 years of living, real living," he said on the podcast. "I know these are people writing it, right? These aren't my Yale professors. These are not my NCSA drama teachers."

"So I go, 'okay, cool.' So I look at the aggregate and, ok, [48%]," he continued. "But what does that [number] mean when you also got this [large] amount of box office [earnings]?"

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Ultimately, Majors spoke to how hard filmmakers and actors work on movies, even when they wind up getting less-than-favorable reviews after release.

"I invested in these things. That's the other part, you know. The artists and the filmmakers that made these movies invested years, sometimes, into the two hours and 15 minutes you see," he added on the podcast. "I'm not saying be nice, I'm just saying understand it's a real transaction that's happening when you put pen to paper, you know?"

Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man and Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror in Marvel Studios' ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA.
Jay Maidment/MARVEL

Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania screenwriter Jeff Loveness also spoke to the movie's reviews on Tuesday, when he told The Daily Beast the negative reviews initially "took me by surprise."

"I was in a pretty low spot… Those were not good reviews, and I was like, 'What the …?'" he said, noting he is "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," he added, before saying he felt better about reactions once he attended an opening weekend screening.

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