Marvel Studios announced Avengers: Doomsday at San Diego Comic-Con last weekend, with Robert Downey Jr. set to make his MCU return as the villainous Doctor Doom. As we know, this next Avengers movie - previously titled "The Kang Dynasty" - was shaping up to be a very different film prior to Kang actor Jonathan Majors' firing, and we may now have a better idea of what the story would have focused on.
We've already heard that both Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man and Hugh Jackman's Wolverine were going to play a major role, and scooper MTTSH has now shared some more details.
According to this breakdown, all three Spideys would have been revealed to be the Anchor Beings of their respective universes along with Logan and several others, including Nicolas Cage's Ghost Rider.
"In this film, the TVA began gathering Anchor Beings from across the Multiverse, believing they are the only ones powerful enough to defeat the Council of Kangs. Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield were the Anchors for their respective realities, while Tom Holland’s Spider-Man served as the Anchor for Earth-616. The movie was intended to be smaller in scope compared to SECRET WARS, focusing more on Holland's Peter Parker, Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, and other Anchors like Nic Cage's Ghost Rider. The plan was for all of them to ultimately fail, leading to the collapse of the Multiverse and Kang’s creation of Battleworld. This would then set the stage for SECRET WARS, where other MCU characters and additional Multiverse figures would converge on Battleworld."
Some of this does match with previous rumors, and we have heard that the current iteration of Earth's Mightiest Heroes weren't going to have a significant part to play until Secret Wars.
It remains to be seen how much of this story was changed after Majors' firing. There's always a chance Kang was simply switched out for Doom, and the basic premise will stay the same (Battleworld is still expected to feature, at the very least). However, with Joe and Anthony Russo boarding the project and new writers working on the script, we'd say the movie being almost completely reworked is a more likely scenario.
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.