Alan Cumming was one of the more surprising names to be announced during that massive Avengers: Doomsday's cast reveal live-stream, but the actor is indeed set to reprise his role as Nightcrawler for the next big MCU event movie.
Cumming made his one and only appearance in 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise as Kurt Wagner in X2, but declined the studio's offer to return for the third film because he had no interest in sitting through the arduous makeup process again.
Wagner didn't show up in again until Kodi Smit-McPhee took over as a younger take on the character in X-Men: Apocalypse.
There's been some speculation that Cumming may only be lending his voice to a fully CG take on Nightcrawler, but the actor recently confirmed that this will not be the case.
"Isn't it nuts? I'm excited and amazed," Cumming told Collider when asked about his return for Doomsday. "It's been 23 years since I was a superhero. I've had some makeup tests already for the role, but what's great about it was that before it was about 4 and a half hours to apply it, but now it's only 90 minutes. Before, all of the tattoos were done by hand. They hadn't decided on them before we started filming. Now, they just stick onto my face. It's a game changer. I'm going back to being a 60-year-old superhero, and everyone seems really lovely."
Now, Cumming has given us a teasing behind-the-scenes glimpse of his transformation into the "fuzzy elf." In addition to a photo of the pointed teeth he'll don as the character, there's an image of Nightcrawler on a box, which has led to speculation that Cumming will wear a comic-accurate costume.
Unfortunately, this appears to be fan-art. Cumming has let a few things slip about this movie in the past, but we assume he'd know better than to post an official promo image.
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