Marvel Studios had plans in place for a Kang-focused story in the fifth Avengers movie (FKA Avengers: The Kang Dynasty), but were forced to go back to the drawing board when actor Jonathan Majors was convicted of assault.
The decision was then made to pivot to Doctor Doom, who will be played by Tony Stark actor Robert Downey Jr.
"We've always worked very closely with Markus and McFeely through all the work that we've done together," co-director Joe Russo said last year when Stephen McFeely joined the writing team. "It's a little bit like getting back on a bike. We have a really codified process that we all work together through. It's very complicated to iron out a story of this scale."
"These are gonna be very, very big movies with a lot of characters in them and a lot of storylines coalescing," added Joe Russo. "We're really happy with how they're coming together right now."
We're not sure exactly how much the original idea was altered, but coming up with a new story almost certainly involved more than simply switching one villain for another, and it sounds like the script still isn't quite where it needs to be.
According to scooper Daniel Richtman, Marvel has cracked the story, but the script is still not complete and will likely be worked on right up until March, shortly before filming is scheduled to commence.
This isn't as unusual as you might think (the writing process often continues even when cameras are already rolling), and doesn't necessarily mean that shooting could be delayed (though it's certainly possible).
Plot rumors continue to swirl, and there's talk of a new team of Earth's Mightiest Heroes assembling to do battle with evil variants of the original six Avengers. This is probably more speculation than anything else, although Chris Evans will be back (as Steve Rogers, not Johnny Storm), and we recently heard that Scarlett Johansson will also return as Black Widow despite Natasha Romanoff being killed off in Avengers: Endgame.
Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters on May 1, 2026, followed by Avengers: Secret Wars on May 7, 2027. Both films 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.
Have another look at some photos Downey Jr. shared to Instagram after the big reveal below.