It captivated audiences for approximately five and a half hours. That’s 328 minutes of slow-panning, every 15 minutes or so revealing another chair with an actor’s name on it, all culminating in Robert Downey Jr. revealing his own chair.
The cast of Avengers: Doomsday has officially been announced, and the next instalment in the MCU superhero team-up movies is officially in production.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
What an absolutely hype way to do this, capturing the imaginations of Marvel fans all over the world with an extremely simple reveal video. I’m sure plenty of people are really pumped for this movie now, and it can’t come soon enough, right?
But wasn’t it also kinda dumb? Let me tell you both sides, and you can decide.
So, without further ado, let me run you through the announced cast list from the video.
Note: the characters are only stated as per our current knowledge. We’re dealing with weird-ass multiverse shenanigans, so things could change, and not just THE Thing. Ha. Please laugh with me.
That’s one hell of a cast! All of our favorites from the current crop of the MCU, including the much-awaited return of Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, plus some ridiculous returns from the Fox era of X-Men, including Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellan! Channing Tatum also looks to be making his second official appearance as Gambit after his scene-stealing romp in Deadpool & Wolverine. What a time to be alive!
This movie has got to be the perfect way to retrieve lapsed MCU fans because this announcement had people captivated! When I switched on for the final couple of reveals, the official Marvel channel had over 174,000 viewers tuning in. ON A FIVE AND A HALF-HOUR STREAM! They knew exactly what they were doing, and it was executed to perfection!
Or so it seems.
The dumb part may just be a me problem.
Why did they have to include the cast from two upcoming MCU movies? Thunderbolts* is next up on the docket, and the trailer looks like it’s a pretty desperate situation they’re walking into. Yelena, U. S. Agent, Ghost, Red Guardian, Bucky and Sentry are all confirmed for that film, and now they’re revealed to be in Avengers: Doomsday. Similarly, Invisible Woman, The Thing, Human Torch and Mr. Fantastic, AKA the Fantastic 4, have their own film releasing before Avengers: Doomsday.
This tells us one of two things:
So, we either have plot armor to deal with, or we have roll-your-eyes writing. Awesome sauce. Exactly what I wanted.
Could they not have waited? Or could we have omitted some of those names? I mean, in Thunderbolts*, for example, it leads me to believe that the only main cast member that didn’t receive a Doomsday chair, Olga Kurylenko, AKA Taskmaster, is going to kick the bucket. She has no future appearance armor to protect her from the sacrificial lamb role in this next movie.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (although it was always pretty likely they would survive their first outing) now has little to no stakes for our main characters. Why should I care about this film except to find out how they make it to the next film?
Sigh.
So, there we have it. Hype or dumb? You decide. I’m definitely excited, but some of this doesn’t sit quite right with me. *shrug*
I'm leaning towards dumb and the invocation of the multiverse to keep anyone and everyone alive. I feel like they're trying to get ahead of any casting leaks, but in the process have sent people into a tizzy of confusion rather than true excitement. I feel like the OG X-Men have had their send offs, so I'm hoping that it's handled gracefully. Especially Alan Cumming, I just want anything he does to be worth it to drag him away from Traitors. I am admittedly very excited to see Channing Tatum's Gambit again though.
...I did fully expect Ryan Reynolds to just show up as he's the self-declared Marvel Jesus, but that may in fact be the surprise cameo they're holding back on.
1000% Ryan Reynolds shows up at the very end along with all those missing phase 1&2 characters like Benadict Cumberbatch, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, and Brie Larson.
Yeah pretty bummed they pretty much spoiled Thunderbolts*. They couldn't have waited another month for this announcement?