U.S. Army quickly plans new ads after Jonathan Majors' arrest

The Army is working to quickly pull together some new recruiting ads to air during the NCAA's Final Four basketball games this weekend, after being forced to yank commercials that featured actor Jonathan Majors, in the wake of his arrest last Saturday.

The Army is working to quickly pull together some new recruiting ads to air during the NCAA's Final Four basketball games this weekend, after being forced to yank commercials that featured actor Jonathan Majors, in the wake of his arrest last Saturday.

Army leaders had been excited to feature Majors in the ads, as a key part of their new campaign aimed at reviving the service's struggling recruiting numbers -- which fell far short of their enlistment goal last year. They believed the ads would capitalize on Majors' popularity coming off his recently movies "Creed III" and "Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania" -- hoping it would help them reach the youth audience.

Last weekend, however, they pulled the ads off the air when Majors was arrested in New York on charges of strangulation, assault and harassment. New York City police said the actor was involved in a domestic dispute with a 30-year-old woman. But a lawyer for Majors, Priya Chaudhry, has said there is evidence clearing Majors and that the actor "is probably the victim of an altercation with a woman he knows."

Maj. Gen. Alex Fink, head of Army marketing, told The Associated Press Tuesday that in the past week the Army was able to avoid any loss of of the planned $70 million advertising buy, either by postponing ads or replacing them with other pre-existing commercials that were quickly updated.

The ads were set to appear on television, online on places such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and on digital and physical billboards, including on buses. That ad purchase was the main portion of the campaign, which had a total cost of $117 million.

"We are absolutely able to utilize a majority of what we have invested," Fink said in an interview. "We think that we'll have some brand new creative ads in time for the Women's Final Four on Friday."

He said that the Army gathered "an enormous amount" of content and footage for the two commercials -- titled "Overcoming Obstacles" and "Pushing Tomorrow" -- that featured Majors as the narrator.