‘Avengers: Doomsday’: Release Date, Cast, and some Unhealthy Speculation

While still keeping a lot under wraps, Marvel has given fans a peek at what they can expect from the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, set to launch on 1 May, 2026. Delayed by the 2023 writers and actors strikes, as well as some last-minute changes in direction due to the arrest and conviction of actor Jonathan Michael Majors, who was set to play villain Kang the Conquerer in the fifth Avengers film, Doomsday has had a fairly rocky production.

The Marvel train can’t be stopped however, and while delayed, Doomsday is most certainly coming next year, and it’s bringing Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart back as Magneto and Professor X.

Here, we’ll bring together everything we know about the upcoming crossover movie, so strap in!

Why Has Production Been so Rocky?

First announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2022 as Avengers: The Kang Dynasty alongside the next major event film, Avengers: Secret Wars, the film was originally slated to follow-on from a number of other Marvel projects that featured the time-travelling Kang, played by Jonathan Michael Majors. Majors had played Kang across Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Loki, and was set to return in The Kang Dynasty.

The concept of the film, though unconfirmed, was likely to expand upon the concept of Kang’s main character story: that there are multiple versions of himself spread across the multiverse, and that he believed this was causing the multiverse to collapse. At the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, ‘Kang the Conqueror’ was believed dead, but the Council of Kang, led by several variants of the character, begun planning an uprising to conquer the multiverse.

Confused yet? Well, don’t worry – we’re probably never going to see the end of that storyline.

In 2023, Majors was arrested, found guilty of reckless assault of his then-partner Grace Jabbari, charged with harassment, and sentenced to 52 weeks in a domestic violence intervention program. After the sentencing, more women came forward to allege abuses, though none have led to any further legal action.

Soon after the media learned of Majors’ abuse, Marvel dropped him from the roster for The Kang Dynasty. After a bit of too-ing and fro-ing, Marvel decided to drop the Kang storyline entirely and move on to tie the film more directly into its follow-up, effectively turning Avengers: Doomsday into Avengers: Secret Wars Part I.

What Are We Expecting to Happen in ‘Doomsday’?

With the context of Doomsday‘s relationship with Secrets Wars, we potentially have a good idea how the revised film will handle the shift to present Dr. Doom as the key antagonist.

If you don’t want to know more about the various Secret Wars comics Marvel has released over the years, or aren’t interested in unhinged speculation on how they could relate to the MCU version, I’d just skip this section.

See, Marvel’s Phase Four, Five and Six are all labelled under the umbrella The Multiverse Saga following on from the events of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, and have dealt with multiple universes and timelines, particularly in the case of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Deadpool & Wolverine.

Secret Wars, a prominent comic book storyline from the 80’s, brought Marvel’s superheroes and villains together to entertain a cosmic entity known as The Beyonder in something akin to a round of Fortnite: Battle Royale. Essentially, the heroes and villains break up into their own little groups and fight for their freedom from Battleworld, an artificial world created by The Beyonder as a stage for his intergalactic entertainment.

But, in a later storyline (also confusingly called Secret Wars), a new Battleworld is created by Dr. Doom when he steals the power of the Beyonders – the cosmic people the original Beyonder belongs to. It’s a wild storyline, where Doom essentially remakes the universe to his own needs after the multiverse collapses, sentencing the Human Torch to act as the world’s Sun and the Thor Corps to act as police, while he himself is worshipped as a God Emperor.

While I doubt everything will make the cut for the film versions, I’m very much expecting Doomsday to feature Downey-as-Doom gathering some kind of cosmic power, likely related to Galactus (who is set to appear in the upcoming The Fantastic Four: First Steps) and will probably end with Downey performing another ‘Thanos snap’, only this time to remake the universe into his own image, which will set the stage for Avengers: Secret Wars.

Unhinged speculation ends here.

‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Cast Confirmed

Okay, back to reality. While there Marvel Marketing Machine has really only just started kicking into gear for Doomsday, it came out swinging with a five-and-a-half hour livestream showing off 27 names on chairs, including a number from the incredibly popular 2000’s X-Men films.

• Chris Hemsworth as Thor
• Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm
• Anthony Mackie as Captain America
• Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes
• Letitia Wright as Black Panther
• Paul Rudd as Ant-Man
• Wyatt Russell as U.S Agent
• Tenoch Huerta Mejia as Namor
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach as The Thing
• Simu Liu as Shang-Chi
• Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova
• Kelsey Grammer as Beast
• Lewis Pullman as Sentry
• Danny Ramirez as Falcon
• Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm
• David Harbour as Red Guardian
• Winston Duke as M’Baku
• Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost
• Tom Hiddleston as Loki
• Patrick Stewart as Professor X
• Ian McKellen as Magneto
• Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler
• Rebecca Romijn as Mystique
• James Marsden as Cyclops
• Channing Tatum as Gambit
• Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards
• Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom

When is ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ launching?

While originally slated to drop in May of 2025, Marvel decided to push the movie back to 1 May, 2026. Hopefully it’ll stick the landing!