Two new Avengers films, The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars, were announced in July 2022 as the conclusion of the MCU's Phase Six and "The Multiverse Saga". Destin Daniel Cretton was hired to direct The Kang Dynasty and Jonathan Majors was set to reprise his MCU role as the villain Kang the Conqueror. Jeff Loveness joined the film as writer that September. In November 2023, Cretton departed, Waldron replaced Loveness as writer, and Marvel was considering moving away from the Kang storyline, in part due to Majors's legal issues; Majors was fired the following month. The return of the Russo brothers as directors and McFeely as co-writer, the casting of Downey as new villain Doctor Doom, and the new subtitle Doomsday were all announced in July 2024. Filming began in April 2025 at Pinewood Studios in England, with a large cast consisting mainly of actors from previous MCU media and 20th Century Fox's Marvel films. Location filming is taking place in England and Bahrain.
Avengers: Doomsday is scheduled to be released in the United States on December 18, 2026, as part of Phase Six of the MCU. The film's sequel, Secret Wars, is set to be released on December 17, 2027.
Paul Rudd as Scott Lang / Ant-Man: An Avenger and former petty criminal with a suit that allows him to shrink or grow in scale while increasing in strength[3]
Tenoch Huerta Mejía as Namor: The king of Talokan and a powerful mutant with pointed ears and wings on his ankles who is capable of breathing both on land and underwater[3]
Kelsey Grammer as Hank McCoy / Beast: A mutant and member of the X-Men with animalistic physical characteristics, including blue fur, pointed ears, fangs, and claws[3]
Lewis Pullman as Bob Reynolds / Sentry: A superpowered member of the New Avengers who is believed to be stronger than all of the Avengers combined[3]
Alan Cumming as Kurt Wagner / Nightcrawler: A blue-skinned, demonic-looking mutant who can teleport.[3] Cumming said the make-up process was reduced to an hour-and-a-half for Doomsday from the four-and-a-half to five hours it took on the 20th Century Fox film X2 (2003), in large part because the character's tattoos were no longer applied individually by hand.[6] He found working on Doomsday to be "healing" following his miserable experience working on X2.[7]
Channing Tatum as Remy LeBeau / Gambit: A mutant with the ability to charge objects with kinetic energy, causing them to explode on impact.[3] After using a thick, difficult-to-understand Cajun accent for the character as part of a running joke in the film Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), Tatum said he would not "go full Cajun" in Doomsday, with the directors the Russo brothers wanting the film to have a more dramatic and serious tone.[8]
Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic: Sue's husband, Grimm's best friend, and a highly intelligent scientist who is the leader of the Fantastic Four and can stretch any part of his body to great lengths[4]
Following Majors's arrest in March 2023 and subsequent assault allegations, reports and speculation emerged about his future in the MCU.[35][36] Loveness was no longer involved in the film by the start of the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike in May,[37] reportedly because he was closely associated with the Kang storyline and Marvel was "moving away" from that.[38][39] In June, the release dates for The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars were pushed back to May 1, 2026, and May 7, 2027, respectively,[40] in part due to the scripts not being ready before the strike.[41] Cretton stepped down as director of The Kang Dynasty in November 2023,[42] partially due to schedule delays,[43] and Waldron was set to rewrite the film.[44] The next month, Majors was fired by Disney and Marvel Studios after he was found guilty of harassment and reckless assault in the third degree. The studio had started referring to The Kang Dynasty internally as Avengers 5 by then.[45][46] By February 2024, both Avengers 5 and Secret Wars were being rewritten to minimize Kang's role or remove him entirely following Majors's firing.[47]
Shawn Levy became the studio's top choice to direct Avengers 5 by mid-March 2024, after he directed the MCU film Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), but there were potential scheduling issues with his other projects.[48][49] By that May, Marvel Studios had approached Robert Downey Jr.—who starred as Tony Stark / Iron Man in "The Infinity Saga", covering the MCU's Phases One, Two, and Three—about returning to the MCU to take on the new character of Victor von Doom / Doctor Doom. Downey said he would only return if the Russo brothers also returned as directors.[50][51][52] After McFeely approached the Russos with an idea for the films that excited them,[10] they entered early talks to direct both Avengers 5 and Secret Wars by mid-July.[53] At SDCC at the end of the month, the Russos were confirmed to be directing the two films.[9] They revealed that Avengers 5 was now titled Avengers: Doomsday, and both films would feature Downey as Doctor Doom.[54] The Russos were producing the films through their production company AGBO, and McFeely had joined as writer for both films,[9][55] working with Waldron.[56] In March 2025, Marvel announced 26 cast members for the film alongside Downey. Many of those actors returned from previous MCU media, while some were reprising their roles from 20th Century Fox's X-Men film series.[3][57] Downey, Marvel Studios, and Feige teased that there were more cast members to reveal.[58][1] Feige said Doomsday would focus on the Avengers, Wakandans, Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts—revealed in Thunderbolts* (2025) to be the government-sanctioned New Avengers—and the "original" X-Men teaming up to face Doom.[1][2]
In April 2024, Alan Silvestri indicated that he could be composing the music for an upcoming MCU project after previously doing so for Infinity War, Endgame, and other MCU films.[71] That July, he was confirmed to be returning as the composer for both Doomsday and Secret Wars.[72]
Marketing
The Doomsday subtitle, the return of the Russo brothers, and the casting of Downey as Doctor Doom were all announced at Marvel Studios' SDCC panel in July 2024. The announcement involved multiple people dressed as Doom appearing on stage, including Downey, who unmasked himself to reveal his casting to the audience.[9] Kat Bailey at IGN described the casting announcement as "one of the most dramatic reveals in recent Marvel history" and reported on mixed responses from fans, with some praising Downey's return while others thought it was a desperate move from Marvel Studios following the creative reshuffling caused by Majors's firing.[73] Charles Pulliam-Moore of The Verge saw the casting as "Marvel betting that it might be able to win audiences back with another massive cinematic event built around a person whose face and voice have long since become synonymous with Iron Man".[74] Other commentators also discussed the casting and mixed responses to it,[75][76][77] including Collider's Collier Jennings who criticized the casting of a non-Romani actor considering the character's comic book heritage.[76] The announcement led to speculation about whether Downey would be playing an alternate universe variant of Tony Stark / Iron Man or if his recasting would be ignored in the film's story.[77][78]
Coinciding with the start of production in March 2025, Marvel aired a nearly five-and-a-half-hour-long livestream showing a line of director's chairs with cast member names on them. A new chair was revealed approximately every 12 minutes, accompanied by music from a relevant previous Marvel project. After revealing 26 cast members, the livestream ended with an appearance by Downey and a rendition of Silvestri's Avengers theme.[3][58] The livestream saw around 100,000 concurrent viewers on YouTube,[79] and an hour-over-hour audience growth, to become the most viewed cross-platform livestream stunt. It became the second-most trending video on YouTube with 275 million views in its first 24 hours, surpassing past livestreams for Marvel's red carpet premieres. The livestream also accumulated 3.1million mentions across social media, which is five times higher than the "social volume" of the first trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine. It garnered 55 distinct trending terms on X (formerly Twitter), with the hashtag "AvengersDoomsday" the top trending topic on the site for over seven hours.[58] Numerous Internet memes were also generated with each cast announcement.[79][58] Anthony D'Alessandro of Deadline Hollywood described the stunt as a "pop cultural event".[58]Variety's Jordan Moreau and Brent Lang called the livestream a "slow-burn" and likened it to the release date reveal for the seventh season of Game of Thrones in 2017, which saw a block of ice melt to reveal the date; both stunts were "mocked for their pace".[79] Austen Goslin of Polygon, who was concerned about the large cast that was announced, described the livestream as "agonizingly slow [but] exceedingly fun". He enjoyed checking the stream for each new reveal and then seeing responses on social media.[80] James Whitbrook of Gizmodo said the number of viewers the livestream had "speaks to the studio's ability to maintain much of that grip it's had on pop culture over the past almost 20 years now".[81] Based on the cast members announced in the livestream, Devin Meenan of /Film believed the film could be adapting elements from the 2012 comic book crossover event "Avengers vs. X-Men" written by Bendis, Matt Fraction, Jason Aaron, Ed Brubaker, and Hickman. He also felt elements of the 2010 limited series Doomwar, written by Jonathan Maberry, could be included. That comic depicts Doctor Doom invading Wakanda and features the X-Men.[82]
The Russo brothers and Rudd introduced footage from the film at Destination D23 in late August 2025.[83] Concept art of Doom from the film was revealed at Disney's Merchandise Expo in China the following month.[84] The expo also featured a light show centered on Doom, which featured logos for the Avengers, X-Men, and Fantastic Four, as well as a recreation of a panel from the 2015 Secret Wars comic series in which Doom rips the skeleton out of Thanos's body.[85]
Release
Avengers: Doomsday is scheduled to be released in the United States on December 18, 2026.[65] It was originally scheduled for release on May 2, 2025,[27] but was delayed to May 1, 2026, in part due to the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike,[41][54] followed by another delay to the December 2026 release to allow more time for production to be completed.[65] It will be part of Phase Six of the MCU.[27]
A sequel, titled Avengers: Secret Wars, is scheduled to be released on December 17, 2027.[65] It is also being written by Waldron and McFeely,[56] and directed by the Russo brothers.[54] The film will conclude Phase Six of the MCU.[27]
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