—Kel McKnight, B1Daily

Jonathan Majors may be trying to rebuild his acting career, but waiting for Hollywood’s biggest studios to roll out the red carpet again could be the wrong strategy. Instead, Majors should consider a road that actors such as Wesley Snipes, Laurence Fishburne and Michael Jai White have all traveled at different points in their careers: keep working, embrace smaller productions, and build a filmography that reaches audiences well beyond American theaters.

Majors once appeared positioned for Hollywood’s A-list, with major roles in Creed III, Loki and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. That trajectory changed dramatically after his 2023 misdemeanor conviction for reckless assault and harassment, after which Marvel dropped him and other projects disappeared. His acclaimed independent drama Magazine Dreams eventually reached theaters in 2025 through Briarcliff Entertainment rather than its original distributor, Searchlight.

But losing the blockbuster machine doesn’t necessarily mean losing a career.

Michael Jai White provides an especially interesting blueprint. Films such as Blood and Bone, Falcon Rising and numerous other modestly budgeted action pictures helped White cultivate an audience built around him, rather than around a giant studio franchise. Wesley Snipes similarly continued appearing in smaller action and genre productions after his blockbuster years, while Laurence Fishburne has mixed prestigious studio work with lower-budget thrillers and genre movies throughout his enormous résumé.

Majors has the physical presence and dramatic ability to thrive in that marketplace. Instead of chasing another $200 million superhero production immediately, he could make three or four smaller action films, thrillers, Westerns or crime dramas, including international co-productions. A $5 million action movie sold across dozens of territories can put an actor’s face in front of audiences who couldn’t care less about Hollywood’s prestige hierarchy.

In fact, Majors is already moving toward independent genre filmmaking. He has pursued projects including the supernatural thriller Merciless, and his post-Marvel work has increasingly included smaller action-oriented productions.

The goal shouldn’t simply be “getting back into Hollywood.” It should be building a career that doesn’t require Hollywood’s permission to exist.

There is an enormous international appetite for straightforward action cinema. Majors has the build to throw somebody through a window, but also enough dramatic range to make audiences care why he did it. Put that combination into inexpensive, well-made action pictures, let him work consistently, and his résumé starts growing again.

Sometimes the road back to the A-list runs straight through the B-movie aisle.

—Kel McKnight, B1Daily