“Avengers: Doomsday” is ready to launch in theaters on December 18, 2026. The solid of “The Incredible 4: First Steps,” “Thunderbolts*” and a number of other returning faces from the “X-Males” movies are uniting with most of the Avengers to face down the most recent menace to the Marvel multiverse, Physician Doom. The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s former large two stars Chris Evans (Captain America) and Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) are returning — solely RDJ is not going to be enjoying Tony Stark, however Doom himself!
Past that, we do not know what the film’s story is or what comics it could pull from … and it appears the filmmakers could not both!
One of many returning “X-Males” actors in “Doomsday” is Rebecca Romijn, who performed Raven Darkholme/Mystique. At the moment, Romijn is enjoying Enterprise XO Una Chin-Riley on “Star Trek: Unusual New Worlds” and he or she attended San Diego Comedian Con to advertise the present along with her castmates. Romijn has beforehand stated that the Marvel followers are extra obsessive than the Trekkies, so I doubt she was stunned when she fielded a query (through THR) about “Doomsday” and whether or not she’s wrapped filming her scenes. Her reply could make your jaw drop, although.
“Not fairly positive [if I’m done filming for ‘Doomsday’]… the script, they have not completed writing it [laughs]… they hold every little thing near the vest to themselves in an effort to maintain every little thing underneath wraps.”
Romijn additionally may “neither affirm or deny” if she’s learn your entire “Avengers: Doomsday” script. The discharge date for “Avengers” Doomsday” has solely getting nearer (the discharge has already been delayed as soon as from Might 2026) and the film started filming in April 2025. Meaning they have been taking pictures for 3 months and are nonetheless tinkering with the story. Possibly that is why “F4: First Steps” is moderately gentle on any “Doomsday” set-up, and Doom himself has no strains throughout his post-credits scene cameo: the story hasn’t been locked in.
Starting principal images earlier than you might have a completed script could sound like a lapse of frequent sense, nevertheless it’s enterprise as standard for Marvel Studios. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige lately spoke with Selection and different retailers about the studio’s present and future plans. (Apparently, plans for the MCU at present prolong to 2032.) Through the interview, Feige admitted that: “We have by no means began a film with out a full script and I’ve by no means been happy with a script that we have had.”
Like different Marvel films, Avengers: Doomsday is present process rewrites all through filming
Feige framed this “make it up as you go” method as one that provides extra inventive freedom to the solid and crew when taking pictures the flicks:
“Actors, each those which are enjoying these characters for the primary or second time and the characters enjoying them for the tenth or twelfth time, are the perfect on the earth at it and know these characters so nicely. If they’ve an thought, you wish to hearken to it and also you wish to modify to it and also you wish to enhance it. I would not wish to change that.”
The primary MCU film, 2008’s “Iron Man,” famously featured much less a full script and extra a top level view. The small print of the story have been stuffed out with improv. That may work when you might have actors as proficient and skilled as Robert Downey Jr. and Jeff Bridges on set! But it surely’s additionally a recipe for potential chaos and jumbled tales.
Even when the sooner phases of the MCU weren’t deliberate out intimately, the flicks nonetheless felt like they have been shifting ahead as a result of overarching menace of Thanos (Josh Brolin). Not so after “Avengers: Endgame,” the place every little thing feels extra scattershot. (Feige attributes the downward flip to amount over high quality, particularly too many TV spin-offs.)
The dearth of an overarching villain in latest films is probably going another excuse why the “Doomsday” story has but to be finalized. Bear in mind, Doom’s introduction (and RDJ’s return) have been a late pivot. Earlier than that, Marvel Studios had been build up Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) as the large unhealthy. The fifth “Avengers” movie was initially titled “The Kang Dynasty,” not “Doomsday.”
Then Majors was arrested for home violence in March 2023. He was convicted that December and subsequently fired by Marvel/Disney. Feige claimed that the pivot wasn’t simply in regards to the Majors scandal, however as a result of Doom was the one villain who may match Thanos’ grandeur. (Certainly, Kang’s debut movie “Ant-Man: Quantumania” obtained moderately poor critiques even when some appreciated Majors’ efficiency.) Based on Feige:
“We had began to appreciate that Kang wasn’t large enough, wasn’t Thanos, and that there was just one character that might be that as a result of he was that within the comics for many years and a long time. We began speaking about Physician Doom even earlier than we formally pivoted from Kang. In actual fact, I had began speaking with Robert about this audacious thought earlier than ‘Ant-Man 3’ even got here out.”
That could be the case, however given what appears to be like from the surface like a last-minute change, a firmed-up script can be reassuring for the Marvel followers on the market who need the MCU again on monitor.
“Avengers: Doomsday” is scheduled to hit theaters on December 18, 2026.
