Marvel reveals 27 Avengers: Doomsday cast members in five-and-a-half hour stunt

When it comes to being very extra, you can’t go past a cast announcement live stream that goes for five hours and 27 minutes.

That’s exactly what Marvel did overnight when it revealed the gargantuan call sheet for the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday movie, which is now filming in London.

The film will assemble stars from across the Marvel Cinematic Universe including from the next two releases, Fantastic Four: First Steps and Thunderbolts, as well as Chris Hemsworth, Paul Rudd and Robert Downey Jr, who had previously been announced and will be returning as a new character, Doctor Doom.

With 27 actors hailing from many corners of the comic book movies world, Avengers: Doomsday, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, looks to be a complex narrative web that will require audiences to have at least a passing familiarity with more than a dozen films.

That may be demanding too much in a pop culture environment where viewers have increasingly grown exhausted of “homework” before heading to the cinemas.

It may a gamble but Marvel is calling “all-in” on Avengers: Doomsday, which is set to be the most involving, ambitious and, presumably, expensive film of its post-pandemic era.

X-MEN ASSEMBLE

The most interesting development were Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, who will be reprising the X-Men characters they first played in the 2000 X-Men movie. Joining them will be Rebecca Romijn, James Marsden, Alan Cumming and Kelsey Grammer.

The inclusion of the original X-Men stars signals the Marvel Cinematic Universe will finally properly address and merge the split universes of the 20th Century Fox X-Men movies and the MCU films which started with the 2008 Iron Man flick.

Marvel Studios reclaimed the screen rights to the X-Men brood as well as usage of the comic book term “mutants” after Disney completed its acquisition of Fox in 2019.

Stewart had a cameo in the 2022 MCU movie Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness but as a parallel universe version of Professor X rather than the character he previously played in six X-Men movies. Grammer also had a cameo as Beast in the post-credits scene of The Marvels in 2023.

For the others, it’s been a long time between superhero costumes. Romjin and Marsden had cameos in the 2014 film X-Men: Days of the Future Past while Cumming’s only appearance as Nightcrawler was in the 2003 entry, X2.

Peripherally related is Channing Tatum, who will be in the cast as Gambit, an X-Men character he had tried to develop for a standalone for many years before it was eventually abandoned. Tatum finally got to don the costume in last year’s Deadpool & Wolverine, and he had said he was interested in doing it again.

THE OGs

Of the more familiar faces in the MCU, Chris Hemsworth will be back as Thor, last seen in the derided film, Thor: Love and Thunder, as will Tom Hiddleston as Thor’s adopted brother, the trickster Loki, who was most recently in the Loki streaming series.

Paul Rudd will return as Ant-Man/Scott Lang while Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier and Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson/Captain America are also confirmed. Relative newcomer to the MCU, Danny Ramirez’s Joaquin Torres, an ally to Sam, will make an appearance.

THUNDERBOLTS

Stan’s co-stars in the upcoming anti-hero team-up movie, Thunderbolts, are making the jump to the big leagues.

Listing Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, David Harbour’s Red Guardian, Wyatt Russell’s US Agent, Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost and Lewis Pullman’s Sentry for Doomsday, also has the effect of confirming that those characters will survive whatever perils are in store in Thunderbolts, which is released in May.

It’s supercharged the already teeming speculation that Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster, not slated for Doomsday, will be the one who dies in Thunderbolts.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR

Perhaps as a reflection of how big a star Pedro Pascal has become in the past few years (he also has the second season of The Last of Us starting in April), Pascal’s name was the penultimate one to be revealed, just before Downey Jr.

Pascal will lead the ensemble of The Fantastic Four, a classic Marvel superhero team who has never before been in the MCU but has had two previous iterations of Fox movies. The Fantastic Four: First Steps will be out in July.

Pascal’s co-stars, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn will also be in Doomsday.

DON’T FORGET

Black Panther’s Letitia Wright as Shuri and Winston Duke as M’Baku have been confirmed.

So has Tenoch Huerta Mejia, who was introduced in the MCU in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever but his character, Namor the Submariner is his own established brand in the comic books.

Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi will return after his debut in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, although no other character from his film has been listed for Doomsday.

WHO’S MISSING?

Despite the avalanche of names, there are some notable omissions, although Marvel is expected to make further announcements on casting so this isn’t the be-all and end-all.

For now, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool, Halle Berry’s Storm, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange, Elisabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man aren’t involved.

Cumberbatch and Olsen have previously said they’re not expected to be in Doomsday but has Cumberbatch has left the door open to appearing in the second half of the two-parter, Avengers: Secret Wars.

Holland is currently in production on Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and will then film Spider-Man 4 almost immediately afterwards so it may be a scheduling thing more than anything else.

The other big name missing is Chris Evans, who retired his Steve Rogers/Captain America character after Avengers: Endgame in 2019 but was reportedly returning for Doomsday, although it was unclear in what capacity and as whom.

Evans may still yet be announced for Doomsday or his casting may have been for Secret Wars.