Avengers: Doomsday Trailer Drops With Doctor Doom Debut
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- The first full trailer for Avengers: Doomsday debuted online, featuring Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, Pedro Pascal (Fantastic Four), Patrick Stewart (X-Men), Letitia Wright (Black Panther), and Florence Pugh (Thunderbolts).
- Robert Downey Jr. returns to the MCU as Doctor Doom in Doomsday and its follow-up Secret Wars, a role reportedly earning him an estimated $100m across both films.
- Ian McKellen reprises Magneto and told the Piazza festival in Rome that the Russo brothers instructed him to "look more furious" while filming a New Jersey destruction scene.
- Co-director Joe Russo described Doomsday as "back to phase zero" of the MCU, saying, "We want to make sure everybody feels like this isn't leaning on anything from the past."
- Avengers: Doomsday opens December 18, the same date as Dune: Part Three, leading box office pundits to predict a Barbenheimer-style showdown.
- Marvel has struggled at the box office recently with Thunderbolts, Fantastic Four: First Steps, and Captain America: Brave New World achieving mediocre results, a steep fall from Avengers: Endgame's nearly $2.8bn gross in 2019.
Why it matters: Marvel is committing an estimated $100m to Robert Downey Jr. for a two-film arc that The Guardian reports "might well decide the future of the entire franchise," while the December 18 collision with Dune: Part Three forces a direct head-to-head rather than a solo box office run.
