Don’t Worry, Avengers: Doomsday Isn’t Done Casting Yet
All will be revealed in time.
Avengers: Doomsday and its follow-up, Secret Wars, are shaping up to be a Marvel fan’s dream. Secret Wars will be the crossover to end all crossovers, combining a decade’s worth of set-up into one massive adventure. Sure, it doesn’t have the sturdiest foundation to build on, as Marvel’s Cinematic Universe has become pretty chaotic. But that’s ideally where Doomsday picks up the slack: the 2026 film will be the first Avengers team-up since Endgame, and it’s tasked with consolidating the messy Multiverse Saga under the threat of one villain, Doctor Doom.
Doom is a formidable force in his own right, but he may also have the power of the multiverse on his side. Worlds are colliding, and characters from parallel realities will find themselves fighting alongside heroes from the MCU’s main timeline. Doomsday directors Joe and Anthony Russo are looking to unite around 60 characters in the upcoming films, which makes Marvel’s first casting announcement feel like just a drop in the bucket.
This week, Marvel rolled out a red carpet of sorts in a five-hour live stream that introduced each actor returning for Doomsday. A new name appeared on the back of a chair every 15 minutes, and by the time Robert Downey Jr. — Marvel’s new Doctor Doom — closed out the reveal, only 26 names had been revealed. There were some surprises in the line-up, like the cast from Fox’s X-Men Universe. Actors from Thunderbolts, Marvel’s next film, got the spotlight too, making what seemed like a one-off movie more important in the grand scheme. But the biggest surprise might have been the names that were missing, as Marvel will have to answer for them sooner rather than later.
Doomsday will bring the X-Men into the MCU, but some crucial characters are still missing.
Doomsday may be the biggest film Marvel’s ever made, so adding more names will only make the project even more unwieldy. That said, it can’t be an Avengers movie without the heroes we know and love. Tom Holland was the most glaring omission, but Avengers like Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange) and Brie Larson (Captain Marvel) were also missing. By bringing the original X-Men into the MCU, Doomsday is building on seeds planted in The Marvels, so why weren’t Iman Vellani (Ms. Marvel), Teyonah Parris (Monica Rambeau), or Lashana Lynch (Maria Rambeau) mentioned in the cast reveal? Where’s Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine? Where’s Ryan Reynolds? And did no member of the Hulk delegation get an invite either?
These questions are among the many swirling through the minds of Marvel fans. A few have theorized that Marvel’s announcement was just the tip of the iceberg: more MCU alums could easily appear in Doomsday, while the 26 spotlighted will form the core Avengers roster. Others, like Spider-Man, may be off doing their own thing when Doomsday takes place. Marvel hasn’t officially confirmed any of these theories yet, but sources close to The Hollywood Reporter say that the studio does have more cast members to reveal. How or when that reveal will happen is a secret only Marvel knows, but with Doomsday entering production this week, it may only be a matter of time before we learn the names one way or another.
