Avengers: Doomsday

• 1. Introduction

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  Avengers: Doomsday announced its central villain with a theatrical gesture at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2024. Several figures in full Doctor Doom armor stepped onto the Marvel Studios stage. One of them removed his mask, and the face beneath it was Robert Downey Jr. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige summed up the casting choice plainly. He said: "He played the most iconic hero. Let's have him play the most iconic villain." That revelation was the end point of a long and turbulent process. A different film had been in development, with a different director, a different writer, and a different villain altogether. How that plan unraveled, and what took its place, is the story Doomsday carries. The film arrives in the United States on the 18th of December, 2026.

• 2. The Kang Collapse

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  Jonathan Majors was arrested in March 2023, and the consequences spread through every corner of Marvel's upcoming plans. Majors had been cast as Kang the Conqueror across multiple Phase Four projects. He was confirmed to star in both of the MCU's next two Avengers films. At San Diego Comic-Con in July 2022, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige had announced those two films: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars. They were scheduled for release on the 2nd of May, 2025, and the 7th of November, 2025, respectively. The Kang Dynasty drew on a 2001-02 comic book storyline by Kurt Busiek, in which Kang travels through time to enslave humanity. Destin Daniel Cretton was hired to direct it. Jeff Loveness was writing the script. Separately, Michael Waldron was attached to write Secret Wars. By the time the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike began in May, Loveness was reportedly no longer involved. Marvel was reportedly moving away from the Kang storyline entirely. The release dates for both films were pushed back in June 2023, partly because the scripts were not ready before the strike. Cretton stepped down as director of The Kang Dynasty in November 2023. That December, Majors was found guilty of harassment and reckless assault in the third degree. Disney and Marvel Studios fired him the same month. The studio, which had already been calling the project Avengers 5 internally, began rewriting both films to reduce Kang's role. By February 2024, the effort had expanded to potentially removing the character entirely. Shawn Levy had become the studio's top choice to direct Avengers 5 by mid-March 2024, following his work on the MCU film Deadpool & Wolverine. Potential scheduling conflicts with his other projects kept that option from moving forward. By May 2024, Marvel had approached Robert Downey Jr. about returning to the franchise to play an entirely different character.

• 3. Reassembling the Team

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  Stephen McFeely reached out to Anthony and Joe Russo with an idea for the new Avengers films. The concept interested them enough to enter early talks by mid-July 2024. The arrangement carried a linked condition: Robert Downey Jr. would only return to Marvel if the Russo brothers were directing. The Russo brothers were confirmed as directors at San Diego Comic-Con at the end of July 2024. At the same event, the film received its new subtitle: Doomsday. The Russos were also producing both films through their own company, AGBO. McFeely joined as co-writer on the project alongside Michael Waldron. Their interest in this kind of story had older roots. The Russos had long been drawn to two specific comic book sources. One was the 1984-85 crossover event written by Jim Shooter. The other was the 2015-16 storyline written by Jonathan Hickman. Both follow Marvel characters from different realities converging on a location called Battleworld. That same concept of colliding universes provided the production's structural foundation. The Russo brothers described Doctor Doom as one of the most complex characters in comics. They called his power "immense," but said that complexity also freed them to explore what they described as "the complexities and the vulnerabilities." Downey did not approach the role passively. He developed his own backstory for the character to anchor his performance. He also contributed ideas for the costume and chose to give Doom a "heavily accented" voice. Joe Russo said the story they had developed gave integral roles to both Downey and Evans. That scale of commitment would shape every aspect of how the cast came together.

• 4. Three Universes, One Screen

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  Kevin Feige explained that the film drew direct inspiration from the Secret Wars concept of universes colliding. That idea gave the filmmakers a practical logic for something the MCU had not previously managed. Actors from 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise could now share the screen with the franchise's established Avengers cast. Chris Evans agreed to return as Steve Rogers after his character had received what Evans called a "definitive ending" in Avengers: Endgame. He came back because he believed the story had a "very real reason that these heroes need Steve Rogers now." Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, James Marsden, Alan Cumming, Kelsey Grammer, and Rebecca Romijn all reprised roles from 20th Century Fox's X-Men productions. Each character arrived from a separate universe within the film's multiverse structure, giving the narrative a justification for their presence alongside the MCU cast. Cumming's experience preparing for Nightcrawler had changed considerably between his two appearances in the role. Playing the character in the 2003 film X2 had required between four and a half and five hours in makeup each day. On the Doomsday set, the process took an hour and a half. The reduction came largely because the character's individual tattoos were no longer applied by hand. Cumming described the Doomsday experience as "healing," a word he used in deliberate contrast to his "miserable" time on X2. Channing Tatum joined the cast as Remy LeBeau, the mutant known as Gambit. He had used a deliberately thick and unintelligible Cajun accent for the character in a previous film. The Russo brothers wanted Doomsday to carry a more serious and dramatic tone, and Tatum confirmed he would not "go full Cajun" this time. Simu Liu said his returning character, Shang-Chi, was older and more self-assured than at his 2021 debut. Liu described him as "a little more lived in with who he is and his responsibilities." The March 2025 announcement named 26 cast members, and Downey, Marvel Studios, and Feige all signaled that additional names had yet to be revealed. That announcement was itself delivered through a format unlike anything Marvel had previously attempted.

• 5. A Five-Hour Reveal

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  Coinciding with the official start of production in March 2025, Marvel aired a livestream that ran for nearly five and a half hours. The setup was simple. A row of director's chairs appeared on screen, each labeled with a cast member's name. One chair was revealed roughly every twelve minutes. Each new chair arrived with music drawn from that cast member's previous Marvel appearances. After the final chair was shown, Robert Downey Jr. appeared in person on screen, and the stream closed with a performance of Alan Silvestri's Avengers theme. At its peak, the broadcast drew around 100,000 concurrent viewers on YouTube. Within its first 24 hours, it accumulated 275 million views and became the second-most trending video on the platform, surpassing view counts from past Marvel red carpet premiere livestreams. Across social media, the event generated 3.1 million mentions. That figure was five times higher than the social volume recorded for the first Deadpool & Wolverine trailer. The hashtag "AvengersDoomsday" held the top trending position on X for more than seven hours, and the broadcast generated 55 distinct trending terms on the same platform. Anthony D'Alessandro of Deadline Hollywood called it a "pop cultural event." Variety's Jordan Moreau and Brent Lang described the livestream as a "slow-burn." They compared it to a 2017 promotional stunt for Game of Thrones, in which a block of ice melted slowly on screen to reveal a season premiere date. Both events were "mocked for their pace." Austen Goslin of Polygon called the stream "agonizingly slow but exceedingly fun." James Whitbrook at Gizmodo saw the viewership as evidence of Marvel's enduring grip on pop culture after nearly 20 years. The cast reveal established a template the studio would return to. A second version of that approach began in December 2025, taking a very different form.

• 6. Four Teasers, One Billion Views

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  On the 18th of December, 2025, the Russo brothers released a short teaser containing a countdown clock, marking one year until the scheduled US release date. A series of four short teasers followed, each attached to screenings of the Disney film Avatar: Fire and Ash, which opened on the 19th of December. The first showed Chris Evans as Steve Rogers holding a baby, confirming his return to the franchise. The second followed Thor praying to Odin for strength to survive the coming battle and return to his adopted daughter, Love. The third centered on the X-Men and showed a ruined Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, ending with Cyclops firing an optic blast into the sky. The fourth brought together the Wakandans and Talokanil, with Shuri and M'Baku encountering Fantastic Four member Ben Grimm. Commentators noted that all four shared a "serious and somber" tone, and each ended with the countdown clock. Doctor Doom was absent from all four teasers. Marco Vito Oddo at ComicBook.com called that absence a smart move to build anticipation for the character. Jesse Schedeen at IGN welcomed the return to a more serious tone for Thor. He contrasted it with the comedic approach taken by director Taika Waititi in Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder. All four teasers leaked before their official online releases. Germain Lussier at Gizmodo said the rollout had been fumbled by Marvel, arguing the leaks had cost the studio the chance to generate in-theater reactions to Evans's return. Despite his criticism, Lussier acknowledged that people were discussing the film 11 months before its release and that the approach was working. Within three days of the fourth teaser's online release, all four had collectively accumulated 1.02 billion views. Together, they exceeded the view count of any single Marvel trailer on Instagram, which stands at 505 million, and drew 103 million views on TikTok. The Russo brothers described the teasers not as advertising but as "stories" and "clues." A full trailer premiered at CinemaCon in April 2026, and the audience response there was strong enough that Downey asked for it to be played a second time.

• 7. On the Ground and on Screen

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  Principal photography began on the 28th of April, 2025, at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, England, under the working title Apple Pie 1. Production designer Gavin Bocquet and cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel reteamed with the Russo brothers for Doomsday. Both had previously worked with the directors on the television series Citadel. Costume designer Judianna Makovsky returned from previous MCU productions. Editor Jeffrey Ford, who had worked on earlier MCU media, was brought on to cut the film. Location shooting extended to Bahrain and was also scheduled at Windsor Great Park in England in June and August. Filming wrapped on the 19th of September, 2025. The Hollywood Reporter noted that a "healthy" amount of additional photography was anticipated in early 2026. Composer Alan Silvestri had indicated his potential involvement as early as April 2024. He was confirmed to be returning as composer for both Doomsday and Secret Wars in July of that year. The Russo brothers produced Doomsday and Secret Wars together in a similar fashion to their approach on Infinity War and Endgame. Unlike those earlier films, however, the two new productions would not be filmed back-to-back. On the distribution side, Doomsday ran into a scheduling conflict. Dune: Part Three shares the same US release date and holds IMAX exclusivity in the United States for at least three weeks, blocking Doomsday from those screens during its opening period. Disney moved to secure access to other premium large formats: Dolby Vision, ScreenX, D-Box, and 4DX. It also announced an Infinity Vision certification, a new standard identifying theaters offering what the studio called "the biggest, brightest, and most immersive cinematic experiences." Several commentators interpreted Infinity Vision as a direct response to the IMAX limitation. Early box office tracking in March 2026 was described as "strong," with predictions placing Doomsday as a candidate for 2026's highest-grossing film. Theatrical exhibitors pointed to Avengers: Endgame's record-breaking run as context for their confidence. A sequel, Avengers: Secret Wars, is scheduled for the 17th of December, 2027, written by Waldron and McFeely and directed by the Russo brothers. That film will conclude both Phase Six and the Multiverse Saga.