The next Avengers movies were originally set to be released this year, with Jeff Loveness (Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania) writing The Kang Dynasty and Michael Waldron (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) tasked with Secret Wars.
Jonathan Majors' personal and legal issues, combined with the largely negative response to the Ant-Man threequel, saw Kang the Conqueror dropped as the MCU's next big bad. Both Loveness and Waldron were supposedly removed from their respective movies, but only after Waldron had been tasked with rewriting what then became "Avengers 5."
Along the way, it became clear to fans and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige that entrusting the relatively inexperienced Rick & Morty scribes with the Multiverse Saga's final chapters perhaps wasn't the wisest move.
Still, of the two, Waldron had made a bigger impact on the MCU, having worked on Loki Season 1 and the Doctor Strange sequel, two projects which went a long way in establishing the MCU's version of the Multiverse.
The return of directors Joe and Anthony Russo and writer Stephen McFeely is bound to have led to some major changes, with Robert Downey Jr.'s introduction as Doctor Doom obviously among the biggest. How many of Loveness and Waldron's ideas will make it into Doomsday and Secret Wars? That remains to be seen, though we recently learned that the latter has been lending McFeely a helping hand.
Talking to The Wrap, Waldron reflected on his Avengers journey and his current involvement with the two-part Multiverse Saga finale.
"I was writing the movie after that but there wasn’t a filmmaker attached yet, I was just involved in all those conversations," he said. "When that movie went away, I was working on what would become 'Avengers: Doomsday' and 'Secret Wars' for a time, and then they brought in the Russos and Steve McFeely."
"As those guys got in and wrapped their hands around what these movies were going to be, and [then] there was an opportunity for me to to come back in and get to know Joe and Anthony and Steve and really just help however I could," Waldron added. "That’s what I’m trying to do is just support them."
We'd imagine that his role is mostly to help them figure out the Multiverse of it all, especially as Loki and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness introduced many complex ideas (including Incursions, which should be crucial to both Doomsday and Secret Wars).
McFeely likely appreciated Waldron's help, as he won't be joined by his Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame co-writer Christopher Markus on either of the upcoming blockbusters.
Avengers: Doomsday is set to be released on December 18, 2026, with Avengers: Secret Wars scheduled to arrive on December 17, 2027.