Marvel Studios announced the cast of “Avengers: Doomsday” on the official Marvel YouTube last Wednesday at 8 a.m. PST. The five-hour-plus livestream was their biggest announcement yet, pulling in 275M digital views and 3.1M social mentions.
27 cast members were revealed on the backs of a line of director’s chairs one by one. There were a couple of cheeky moments, such as the reveal of a tiny director’s chair for Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, and some changes in the music. At the end of the livestream, the music swelled dramatically and a door opened in an out-of-focus section of the video. A silhouetted man walked down the row of chairs to take a seat in his spot, with the camera panning to reveal “Robert Downey Jr.” on the back of the chair. Downey himself then turned to camera, made a shushing motion, gestured to the chairs, and walked off.
The feed then changed to reveal a title card reading “Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Doomsday Now In Production.” Downey later posted to social media, “That’s what you call a deep bench of talent…actually it’s more like a row, but an extra long one…that must be it…right?” Marvel Studios’ responded, “There’s always room for more…”
The cast members announced included “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” cast Pedro Pascal , Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. 20th Century Fox/Marvel X-Men cast member OGs Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Alan Cumming, Rebecca Romijn, James Marsden, Kelsey Grammer and Channing Tatum were also announced.
There were also seats set out for Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Letitia Wright, Paul Rudd, Tenoch Huerta Mejía, Simu Liu, Lewis Pullman, Danny Ramirez, David Harbour, Winston Duke, Hannah John-Kamen, Tom Hiddleston and Florence Pugh.
Many major stars of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, who fans assumed would be in the movie, were left off the cast list. These names include Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange, Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, Tom Holland’s Spiderman and Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch. Some fans also thought Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine would have roles in “Doomsday” after the success of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” but they weren’t on Wednesday’s list.
It’s possible some of these heroes will show up in the movie unannounced given Marvel traditionally conceals some surprises from its marketing materials. It could also be that Marvel still plans to announce additional casting at a later date. The studio hinted as much with their reply to Downey on social media.
Fans have already taken to social media with theories about the movie’s plot based on who was included and excluded from the announcement. Of the confirmed heroes from the MCU’s main universe-616, only Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) have significant ties to the more mystical and cosmic parts of the franchise’s world. The potential absences of characters like Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and the Guardians of the Galaxy suggest that the film may focus more on the geopolitical tensions over superpowered resources than on more outlandish space-based and magical parts of the mythology.
The potential absences of major franchise stars like Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) from Doomsday make it seem likely that “Avengers: Secret Wars” will attempt to achieve a similar effect of escalation as “Avengers: Endgame” had, when characters like Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) returned after not appearing in Infinity War to make the ensemble and scale of the later film even larger than that of the earlier one.
“Avengers: Doomsday” is set to hit theaters May 1, 2026.
