Can Jonathan Majors’ ‘red-hot’ career survive domestic violence allegations?

Up until Saturday, Jonathan Majors’s Hollywood career was “red hot,” with starring roles in “Creed III,” Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and the forthcoming “Magazine Dreams.”

Then came his arrest in New York City Saturday morning, stemming from an alleged altercation with his girlfriend. On Sunday, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office filed assault and harassment charges against the 33-year-old Yale-trained actor. Even though Majors’ attorney told the media at his arraignment that the actor is “completely innocent,” and insisted they have video evidence and eyewitness statements to prove he didn’t attack his intimate partner, the actor and his team still have to be worried.

After all, in a post-#MeToo world, any hint of alleged domestic violence in a male star’s personal life can do serious damage to his reputation and career. Johnny Depp won his defamation case against Amber Heard but spent a number of years in what’s known as the Hollywood jail after the two trials involving his ex-wife produced extensive testimony about his abuse of substances and his self-indulgent lifestyle.

There’s been talk recently that Depp could return to star as Captain Jack Sparrow in a sixth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie. But it’s easy to see how Depp’s return to a major, billion-dollar franchise would still be controversial, especially with it being made by a family-friendly company like Walt Disney Studios.

Disney now has “a Majors problem,” because the actor is attached to several Disney projects and the studio will soon learn if there are issues in how it markets or produces them, as Indiewire reported.

Majors plays supervillain Kang in “Ant Man,” and the character is poised to return in two more Disney-backed Marvel films, “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” and “Avengers: Secret Wars.” Majors also could receive Oscar attention from “Magazine Dreams,” an “exploration of celebrity and violence in which he plays an aspiring bodybuilder who struggles to find human connection.” “Magazine Dreams,” due for release on Dec. 8, is being distributed by Fox Searchlight, a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios.

Indiewire said that 2023 is “supposed to be the beginning for Majors” rise to A-list superstardom.

“Before he became an in-demand actor, he was a lauded one,” Indiewire continued. His breakout role was in 2019’s “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” for which he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. The following year, he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for outstanding lead actor for the drama series “Lovecraft Country.” He also co-starred in Spike Lee’s acclaimed “Da 5 Bloods” and the western “The Harder They Fall.” In a sign of mainstream love, he also hosted an episode of “Saturday Night Live.”

But, as Indiewire pointed out, “an arraignment on assault charges is enough to alarm anyone,” even as Majors’ attorney Priya Chaudhry insisted that prosecutors would eventually drop the charges, given the circumstances.

As ABC News and other outlets reported, police sources said Majors called 911 himself to report his concern about his girlfriend, with whom he lives. But when police arrived, the girlfriend claimed Majors attacked her. She said they were in a cab on the way home from a bar in Brooklyn when he physically attacked her. After officers noticed marks on her body, they placed Majors under arrest, ABC said.

Chaudhry said the evidence exonerating Majors includes video footage from the cab and eyewitness testimony from the driver who saw and heard the episode. More important, Chaudhry said, the alleged victim wrote out two statements, recanting the assault allegations.

“Unfortunately, this incident came about because this woman was having an emotional crisis, for which she was taken to a hospital yesterday,” Chaudhry said. “The NYPD is required to make an arrest in these situations, and this is the only reason Mr. Majors was arrested. We expect these charges to be dropped soon.”

Despite Majors’ proclamation of innocence, the Army pulled its “Be All You Can Be” ad the featured the actor, Indiewire reported. The ad was pulled from TV and the Army’s social channels.

“The U.S. Army is aware of the arrest of Jonathan Majors and we are deeply concerned by the allegations surrounding his arrest,” an Army spokesperson told IndieWire. “While Mr. Majors is innocent until proven guilty, prudence dictates that we pull our ads until the investigation into these allegations is complete.”

Another concern for Majors is that stories began circulating on social media, following his arrest. People came forward to say that the intensity he shows on screen may stem from well-known issues with anger manager. On their separate social media accounts, aspiring filmmaker A.B. Allen and actor Tim Nicolai alleged that Majors behaved badly in personal and professional situations, according to Indiewire.

Nicolai tweeted that “folks at Yale (where Majors got his MFA) and the broader NYC community have known about this for years. … It’s a shame it took this long for him to be reported.” In another tweet, Nicolai said that he and others are close to people who have been “harmed” by Majors. Nicolai and Allen have since locked their accounts, with Nicolai predicting that he would be a target for harassment, Indiewire said.

If there is truth to Nicolai and Allen’s claims, it won’t matter if Manhattan prosecutors drop their charges in this one particular case.

“It will resonate in a way that the legal system can’t easily remedy or address,” Indiewire said. “If they’re baseless, it’s still noise.”