Marvel is trying to recapture the magic with Avengers: Doomsday. The studio has already announced the return of the Russo Brothers and Robert Downey Jr. for the new film. On Wednesday, it announced the rest of the Avengers: Doomsday cast members—starting with the confirmation of Chris Hemsworth’s return and later including X-Men stars Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen—in supremely odd fashion. It was a long, drawn out livestream with no actors in it, just chairs with names on them, a new seat added every fifteen minutes or so over the course of several hours. Absolutely thrilling stuff!
Over two hours into this strange announcement, the studio had racked up 5.1 million viewers, so apparently the strategy worked for them. For the viewer, it couldn’t exactly be described as exciting; it was mostly dead air broken up by the sound of different film’s soundtracks and the canned sound of a chair being opened and placed. After leading with Hemsworth, the studio confirmed the Avengers: Doomsday cast has assembled Fantastic Four‘s Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn, Captain America: Brave New World‘s Anthony Mackie and Danny Ramirez, Thunderbolts* stars Sebastian Stan, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, Lewis Pullman, and Wyatt Russell, Black Panther‘s Letitia Wright and Winston Duke, Ant-Man‘s Paul Rudd, Shang-Chi And The Ten Rings‘ Simu Liu, and Loki‘s Tom Hiddleston to star as Earth’s mightiest heroes. One interesting addition is Wakanda Forever star Tenoch Huerta Mejía, whose villain/anti-hero character Namor has a charged relationship with Kirby’s character Sue Storm in Marvel comics. (Huerta Mejía was accused of sexual assault around the time of Black Panther 2, but apparently since the matter didn’t make it to the courts, it doesn’t affect his future at Marvel—unlike Quantumania star Jonathan Majors.)
Hemsworth was among the stream’s biggest surprises, and the only original Avenger amongst the Doomsday lineup (Chris Evans has denied returning, despite earlier reports that he and Hayley Atwell were cast). In interviews since Thor: Love & Thunder, he’s been on the fence about coming back as the Asgardian hero, and has even said he felt his character was “replaceable” within the Avengers team. But with Marvel struggling to get people excited about the franchise’s post-Endgame future, having a mainstay star on the new squad was likely a studio priority. Plus, including an OG Avenger on the team adds emotional resonance facing off against Robert Downey Jr.’s (presumably multiversal) villain Doctor Doom. Thor last appeared in a brief scene at the Time Variance Authority in Deadpool & Wolverine. And on the subject of that Marvel success story, Channing Tatum, who played D&W‘s Gambit, was one of the day’s many announcements.
The crossovers continued when the X-Men were officially confirmed with the reveal of a chair for Kelsey Grammer. Grammer’s Beast appeared in a post-credits sequence in The Marvels, setting the stage for the X-Men to appear alongside the Avengers for the first time since Disney acquired 20th Century Fox. (Iman Vellani’s character was also revealed to be a mutant in her Disney+ series Miss Marvel.) Grammer’s chair was followed an hour later by chairs for McKellan, who played Magneto, and Stewart, the franchise’s longtime Charles Xavier. Stewart’s Xavier has died twice—once in Logan, the final film of the 20th Century Fox era, and once at the hand of the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. Based on The Marvels post-credit scene it appears Beast (much like the Fantastic Four) will be visiting from another universe, so they could’ve plucked another living Professor X from anywhere in the multiverse. It appears Marvel will hold off recasting the X-Men to give the octogenarian elder statesmen of modern superhero films one last ride. Original X-Men trilogy stars Alan Cumming (Nightcrawler), Rebecca Romjin (Mystique), and James Marsden (Cyclops) were also announced.
There were some notable omissions from the lineup. Benedict Cumberbatch already shared that Doctor Strange would sit this one out. But neither Brie Larson nor her Marvels co-stars Vellani and Teyonah Parris were part of this announcement. Nor was Tom Holland, despite a fourth Spider-Man currently in development. Original Avengers Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner are apparently sitting this one out, and Olsen’s Scarlet Witch is presumably still dead. And there’s no Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to keep this unwieldy ensemble organized.
When Downey and the Russos were announced, it was to huge fanfare for an in-person Comic-Con extravaganza. For the actual Avengers—and the long-awaited crossover with the X-Men!—it’s… a mostly silent multi-hour livestream on a random Wednesday. None of the actual stars were even involved in the event, except Downey, who ended the stream by slowly walking into the empty warehouse and sitting in his own chair, before turning to the camera and making a “shh” sign. To have the climactic reveal of the livestream announcement be a guy who was already announced is puzzling, to say the least. The stream may have attracted millions of viewers, but it’s not a very convincing way to get those viewers excited about the end result.
