Disney facing crisis over Jonathan Majors as he faces assault allegations

Disney is facing a looming crisis over its multi-million dollar star Jonathan Majors after he was charged with assaulting his girlfriend. 

The movie giant has the worldwide premiere of Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” on Thursday when stars including Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Vin Diesel and Karen Gillan will tread the red carpet at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood.

There, the stars will be left in the awkward position of facing questions about their Marvel Universe colleague’s Manhattan arrest for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend, Grace Jabbari, 30, last month.

So far Disney and Marvel have been silent.

But insiders tell The Post that Disney bosses fear that if they dump Majors, he will sue — and instead, they are waiting to see if his case will go to trial. 

At the same time, he has adopted an aggressive legal strategy, releasing footage to attempt to portray his now ex-girlfriend as a liar, and highlighting that he is black.

Majors, 33, a Yale drama school grad who played Kang in “Ant-Man and The Wasp” and starred in “Creed III,” is now one of Disney’s biggest investments.

Variety this week reported he has signed a $20 million payday including back-end compensation for “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.”

But that is only the start of his enmeshment in the entertainment giant’s slate. He is also signed up to star in “Avengers: Secret Wars.”

And he has a separate deal to appear as Kang in “Loki” on Disney+, the streaming service.

Alongside this, Disney’s Searchlight studios has snapped up his most recent movie, “Magazine Dreams,” in which he plays a tormented bodybuilder.

And he presented at the Oscars, another sign of his rising stardom.

Majors has already been getting Oscar buzz for the film which is slated to release in December.

An Oscar win for Disney would be seen as a vindication of boomerang CEO Bob Iger’s focus on creativity — but now the studio has to consider whether it will stand by the film.

One highly placed Hollywood studio source said the studios need to be careful should Majors in fact threaten legal action, adding: “It’s very possible they are waiting for things to play out before they make that decision.

“There is definitely a legal consideration, they need to gather facts should there be a dispute over his removal from any projects.”

But his arrest for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend, British dancer Jabbari, is threatening to upend his promising career.

Variety also reported multiple alleged abuse victims are speaking with the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s Office.

The DA declined to comment to The Post.

Majors was arrested in NYC on March 25 over the alleged domestic dispute with Jabbari, in a car as they returned to Manhattan from Brooklyn.

She was taken to the hospital with “minor injuries to her head and neck,” according to authorities, and later released.

Majors is expected to appear before a judge on May 8 as he faces multiple counts of harassment and assault filed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

He denies the accusations.

Although Deadline reported there have been zero conversations in the Marvel camp to drop Majors, he’s parted ways with his publicists at the influential Lede Company, one of the only firms in Hollywood to have a woman of color as a founder, and has been dumped by his managers at Entertainment 360.  

However, he is still with his agents WME, led by the uber-powerful Ari Emmanuel.

The Hollywood source said the studios’ silence could also possibly start “a pushback against instantaneous cancel culture approach,” adding “Many people in Hollywood are so fearful of the ‘guilt by association’ that they would rather cut someone and damage their reputation, instead of taking any chance of potentially hurting their own.”

The Post can reveal that Majors is now fighting to save that reputation – and the millions which go with it — with an aggressive strategy that includes releasing video footage to suggest that Jabbari is lying, and highlighting his claim that he is being targeted because he is a black man accused of assaulting a blonde woman.

Majors attorney Priya Chaudhry claimed that newly released surveillance footage shows officers “clearly coaching” Jabbari to say Majors grabbed her by the throat. 

Chaudhry also shared a text exchange between the pair purportedly showing Jabbari taking accountability for the incident. 

She told The Post on Friday: “Both the District Attorney and the media have seen absolute proof that the accuser has lied and was not injured by Mr. Majors and that Mr. Majors is totally innocent.

“And yet many journalists (and people) prefer to ignore evidence and fact and instead participate in a racist trope at the heart of this: that black men are violent and dangerous until proven otherwise. And in this case, even when they are proven otherwise.”

She added: “If, in the end, members of our society choose racist and sexist stereotypes over facts and evidence, this should disturb everyone. And those voices should be ignored.”

The Post made multiple attempts to contact lawyers for Jabbari, alongside Disney and Marvel.

Actor and director Tim Nicolai, who ran in the same NYC theater and film circles with Majors, tweeted after his arrest: “I’m just gonna say this about Jonathan Majors and be done with it: folks at Yale and the broader NYC community have known about him for years.

“He’s a sociopath and abuser and that is how virtually everyone speaks about him. It’s a shame it took this long for him to be reported.”

“Literally people he did this to are texting me right now,” Nicolai replied to a woman who urged him to provide proof of his allegations. “It’s not ‘I heard.”

Majors has already lost one role: he’ll no longer star in “The Man in My Basement” and is out of the running for an Otis Redding biopic; the US Army, while the Texas Rangers dropped his ad campaigns; and he’s stepped down the Gotham Film Board and will no longer attend the Met Gala on May 1.

An industry insider who knows Majors told The Post: “I imagine Disney is waiting to see what other projects and companies drop him until their own decision appears inevitable.

“But with each additional domino that falls, it becomes more impossible for them to ignore it.

“Hopefully, this will spur some change in the industry, and companies may do more digging on actors before signing them to enormous contracts.”