Neither Avengers: Doomsday nor Dune: Part Three has backed down, so December 18 is officially "Dunesday." While you might think that two huge movies opening on the same day would do more harm than good, the fact that they're playing over the holidays somewhat changes things.
There's room for both to succeed, and Marvel Studios and Warner Bros. Discovery are clearly confident in what they're bringing to the table. The latter has secured IMAX screens for the Dune threequel, but Disney has countered that by launching "Infinity Vision" screens.
In an interview with Chinese press, Kevin Feige broke his silence on the two blockbusters going head-to-head in theaters. "Well, one of the jobs of filmmakers is to make sure a lot, a lot of people go to the theaters," he explained. "So on the one hand, it's exciting to hope that theaters all over the world will be packed that weekend."
"On the other hand, we couldn't finish making Avengers: Doomsday in May, so it had to be moved to December," Feige said of scrapped plans to release the movie on May 1, earlier this year.
The studio boss went on to say that the movie is special to him because he can now bring the Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Doctor Doom together on screen—which wasn't possible before the Disney/Fox merger—for "a cosmic collision with some of your favourite characters in each universe."
"In Avengers: Endgame, everyone was united against Thanos. In Avengers: Doomsday, the situation is even more precarious: three different universes, three different Earths, literally colliding with each other," he added. "The question then arises: will these heroes kill each other to protect their own worlds, or might they find a way to work together to save all three worlds? And how will Doctor Doom intervene?"
"Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars were largely inspired by the storylines of Marvel Comics' 'Time Runs Out' and 'Secret Wars,' so—it's customary—the comics provide significant guidance for the films we're making."
In those stories, Incursions started laying waste to the Multiverse, leading to the formation of a new Illuminati, which fashioned devices to destroy other worlds before Earth-616 was obliterated. Penned by Jonathan Hickman, his New Avengers run raised some interesting questions, including whether killing one planet to save another (the alternative was both being wiped out of existence) was morally right.
It sounds like Doom will be front and centre in that, and for Feige, Robert Downey Jr. was the perfect actor to bring Victor to life in the MCU.
"We didn't want to just bring Tony Stark back. The ending of Avengers: Endgame was one of our proudest moments, seeing audiences worldwide react to Tony's sacrifice, so we didn't want him to just return 'magically,'" he explained. "But in Marvel, there are many opportunities to see actors return in new ways."
"When we were casting for Doctor Doom, we said: we need to find the greatest actor in the world. Doctor Doom is one of the most interesting characters. He's intelligent, has an extremely high IQ; he can be a villain, but he also sees himself as a hero. We went to see Oppenheimer—for which he won an Oscar—and we finally realized."
"Just like when we were casting Captain America, we didn't want to exclude Chris Evans just because he'd played other Marvel characters, and in this situation, we thought: how great, bold, and risky it would be to bring back our most famous hero to play our most famous villain. Thank goodness, he agreed," Feige concluded.
Marvel Studios is taking some big swings with the two movies set to conclude the Multiverse Saga. While there's seemingly no connection between Downey's Doom and the time he spent as Iron Man, it still seems likely that we'll see Tony Stark before the credits roll on Secret Wars.
Avengers: Doomsday is set to be released on December 18.