We shared a couple of Avengers: Doomsday-related rumors from The Cosmic Circus yesterday, and Alex Perez's Q&A has brought us a few more intriguing details about the upcoming Marvel Studios event film and the various characters involved.
Though all of this should be considered rumor for the time being, there may be a few significant spoilers ahead.
We already reported that Marvel intends to keep certain Doomsday actors/characters under wraps until the movie hits theaters, and Perez says he's confirmed "that there are actors who weren’t announced that were filming recently for Avengers: Doomsday in the land down under."
Perez seems fairly sure that, in addition to Tom Holland's Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire will also return as the OG big-screen take on the wall-crawler. Holland's role is said to be "similar to the one in Avengers: Infinity War," while it sounds like Maguire's Spidey could "provide some insight from his world, as his universe is one of the main worlds involved in the final incursion due to Dr. Strange’s spell."
Tom Hiddleston has already been confirmed to return as Loki, and Perez believes the (former) God of Mischief will have a fairly prominent role, teasing: "All those centuries of physics, quantum mechanics, and learning everything OB knows has to pay off for something."
With such a sprawling cast, we're bound to see at least one unexpected pairing, and Perez reports that Red Guardian (David Harbour) and The Thing (Ebon Moss Bachrach) will team-up in the movie. We don't have any context, but these two characters together have the potential to make for a highly entertaining double-act.
We already expected Doctor Doom to be an at least somewhat sympathetic villain, and Perez believes the Russos will stick with the themes of their previous MCU movies by focusing on a bad guy who believes he is doing what's best for the universe (or in this case, the Multiverse).
"The Russos have always had 1 common pattern in most of their MCU films… that pattern being making the antagonists of their films have a valid motivation to justify their actions. Alexander Pierce in The Winter Soldier believed that if humanity were left unchecked without oversight, chaos would ensue because of free will. That’s why he established Project Insight with HYDRA. With Baron Zemo in Civil War, his family died in Sokovia during Age of Ultron as a result of the Avengers’ battle with Ultron. So he sought to destroy the Avengers from within by making them fight each other. With Thanos, he saw overpopulation as the ultimate threat to existence, so he sought out to eliminate half of all life at random to restore balance to the universe.
With Doom, it will be similar. A man scorned by the incursions that are happening across the multiverse, dooming countless realities, and he wants to bring an end to that by any means necessary."
Finally, Perez hints that Hayley Atwell will be introduced as Peggy Carter in Doomsday, but may suit-up as Captain Carter in Secret Wars. He also indicated that this will not be the final time we see Chris Evans as Steve Rogers.
Let us know what you make of these rumors in the comments, and be sure to have a read through the full Discord Q&A here.
Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars were recently hit with significant delays, with Doomsday now set to arrive in theaters on December 18, 2026, and Secret Wars positioned for December 17, 2027.
Both movies will be directed by the Russo brothers, who also make their MCU return after helming Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
"Being able to create stories and explore characters within the Marvel Universe fulfilled a life-long dream of ours, and we discovered a powerful connection with audiences in each film that we made. We’re thrilled to collaborate once again with Kevin, Lou and the entire Marvel team to bring this epic adventure in storytelling to new and surprising places for both the fans and ourselves”, said The Russos in a statement after the SDCC panel.
You can check out the full (for now) Doomsday cast list below.
• Paul Rudd as Ant-Man
• Simu Liu as Shang-Chi
• Tom Hiddleston as Loki
• Lewis Pullman as Sentry
• Florence Pugh as Yelena
• Danny Ramirez as Falcon
• Ian McKellen as Magneto
• Sebastian Stan as Bucky
• Winston Duke as M’Baku
• Chris Hemsworth as Thor
• Kelsey Grammer as Beast
• James Marsden as Cyclops
• Channing Tatum as Gambit
• Wyatt Russell as U.S. Agent
• Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm
• Rebecca Romijn as Mystique
• Patrick Stewart as Professor X
• Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler
• Letitia Wright as Black Panther
• Tenoch Huerta Mejia as Namor
• Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards
• Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost
• Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm
• David Harbour as Red Guardian
• Robert Downey Jr as Doctor Doom
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach as The Thing
• Anthony Mackie as Captain America