Last month, Marvel Studios announced that Patrick Stewart (Professor X), Ian McKellen (Magneto), Alan Cumming (Nightcrawler), Rebecca Romijn (Mystique), James Marsden (Cyclops), Kelsey Grammer (Beast), and Deadpool & Wolverine's Channing Tatum (Gambit) will all star in Avengers: Doomsday.
The news excited fans, but that feels like a roster of X-Men that's far from complete. Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), Storm (Halle Berry), and Rogue (Anna Paquin) are all notable by their absence, as is Hugh Jackman's Wolverine.
It's previously been reported that Berry is close to signing up to reprise her role as Ororo Munroe, but scooper @MyTimeToShineH's latest update suggests otherwise.
"No Halle Berry in Avengers Doomsday, FOR NOW," the scooper writes. "Since right now they are only filming scenes with the cast we heard about during the announcement."
If it's true that the cast announced are the only ones currently signed up for Avengers: Doomsday, Marvel Studios will need to do a lot of post-production trickery to insert those who are a little late to the party. It wouldn't be the first time because many of Benedict Cumberbatch's Avengers: Infinity War scenes were shot with a stand-in.
After The Marvels and Deadpool & Wolverine, mutants (and, more specifically, the original big screen X-Men) factoring into the next Avengers movies was to be expected.
The prevailing theory is that an Incursion between Earth-616 and Earth-10005 will the heroes of each world against each other...before they inevitably team up to battle Doctor Doom, of course.
Last September, we caught up with Berry to discuss her role in Never Let Me Go. Asked whether she thinks a "Storm" could be brewing in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, she told us, "[Shrugs] You never know. We'll find out! [Laughs]"
"I really loved playing Storm," Berry previously told Wired. "You know, being in the world of the X-Men and mutants was always really important to me, because being a woman of color, I have often felt on the outside of things. I've often felt marginalized and overlooked and unseen, and that's what the X-Men were all about."
"These mutants finding their voice and finding a way to be seen and appreciated for who they really were. And as a Black woman, I really related to that," she continued. "So it was fun to put on the skin of Storm, to fly, and to be part of that kind of storytelling. I thought it was really important."
Avengers: Doomsday is set to be released in May 2026, with Avengers: Secret Wars scheduled to arrive in May 2027.