Category: Comic-Con

Preview:

• Marvel Studios revealed at Comic-Con that Robert Downey Jr. will return to the MCU as Doctor Doom in ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ and ‘Avengers: Secret Wars.’
• Both films will be directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, who helmed four of Marvel’s biggest movies, including ‘Avengers: Endgame.’
• Marvel’s presentation also featured footage from ‘Fantastic Four,’ ‘Thunderbolts*,’ and ‘Captain America: Brave New World.’

Marvel Studios may turn up at Comic-Con only once every two years or so for a big Saturday night presentation in the San Diego Convention Center’s Hall H, but leave it to the Disney superhero powerhouse to blow the roof off the place as usual.

Just two years after Marvel president Kevin Feige announced in this same room that the next two Avengers movies would be called ‘Avengers: The Kang Dynasty’ and ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’ – before harassment and assault charges leveled against Kang actor Jonathan Majors ended his brief reign as the MCU’s next Thanos-level threat – Feige unveiled how the studio would realign its upcoming slate.

At the conclusion of the hour-long showcase for thousands of fans, Feige confirmed the heavily-rumored news that Anthony and Joe Russo – directors of ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ and ‘Avengers: Endgame’ – would return for ‘Secret Wars’ and the newly retitled ‘Avengers 5,’ now called ‘Avengers: Doomsday.’

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Greeting the Hall H crowd, Anthony Russo said, “Joe and I truly believed that [‘Endgame’] was the end of us for the MCU ‘cause we had put all our passion and love into those past films.” He added, “In the time since, through a very special story, Joe and I have come to potentially see a road forward with you all.”

With a title clearly heralding the MCU introduction of one of Marvel’s greatest villains, the Russos and Feige then revealed the actor playing Doctor Doom – as one of a number of people onstage dressed as Doom whipped off his mask to reveal Robert Downey Jr.

Yes, that Robert Downey Jr., whose debut as Iron Man 16 years ago provided the launching pad for the MCU itself, and whose death scene in ‘Endgame’ hasn’t stopped recent rumors that Downey could return to the Marvel universe. Whether his Victor von Doom will be an alternate universe version of Tony Stark gone bad remains unclear for now.

“New mask, same task. What can I tell ya?” Downey exclaimed as the crowd lost its mind. “I like playing complicated characters.”

‘Avengers: Doomsday’ will be out May 2026, while ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’ arrives a year later, in May 2027.

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‘Captain America: Brave New World’ Reveals ‘X-Men’ Connection and More

Marvel’s highly-anticipated presentation began, cheekily enough, with a brief victory lap for the astounding success of the newly-released ‘Deadpool & Wolverine,’ as a choir in red and yellow robes took to the stage to sing Madonna’s ‘Like A Prayer,’ which scores a key moment in the already massive new MCU film.

As various Deadpools danced through the aisles, Kevin Feige and MC Rob Delaney came onstage as well, with Feige announcing that ‘Deadpool & Wolverine,’ the 34th MCU film, had just pushed the franchise’s total box office haul over $30 billion.

After saying that they would only talk about three movies (more on that later), Feige brought out the key cast of ‘Captain America: Brave New World’: Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson/Captain America), Tim Blake-Nelson (Samuel Sterns/The Leader), Danny Ramirez (Joaquin Torres/Falcon), and Giancarlo Esposito, who announced that his previously undisclosed character would be Sidewinder, “the king of the Serpent Society.”

(It was nearly a decade ago that Feige teased that the third Captain America movie would be subtitled ‘Serpent Society’ – based on a Marvel group of supervillains – before revealing it to actually be ‘Civil War.’)

The always effusive Mackie quipped onstage, “A few years ago Tom Holland [the MCU’s Spider-Man] made a joke about not having a Falcon movie. I said, ‘I don’t have a movie, but you’re not 5’11”!’” He added, “Now I have a movie, but he’s still not 5’11”!”

Feige introduced a sizzle reel of new ‘Captain America’ footage by saying that the movie harkens back to the ‘more grounded’ spirit of ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier.’ Within the action-heavy footage, however, two things stood out.

First, Harrison Ford’s President Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross refers to the Celestial that was left stuck in the Earth at the end of ‘Eternals,’ noting that it’s made out of adamantium – the same material as Wolverine’s claws and skeleton, and an ‘X-Men’ breadcrumb if we ever heard one.

Second, the footage featured a brief look at Ross turning into the Red Hulk right in the middle of giving a speech in front of the White House. As the lights came up in Hall H, Ford himself came onstage and did his best approximation of Hulking out for the delirious crowd. The legendary actor said, “I’m proud to become a member of the Marvel universe. I’ve been watching fantastic actors having a good time and I wanted a piece of that.”

‘Captain America: Brave New World’ arrives in theaters February 14, 2025.

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‘Thunderbolts*’ Introduces Marvel’s Motliest Crew

Leave it David Harbour to arrive in Hall H by running up the aisles in his full Red Guardian costume, only to shout up to his fellow (normally dressed) cast members already onstage: “Guys, I sent that email and we all said we were gonna dress up ‘cause it was Comic-Con!”

Although the rest of the ‘Thunderbolts*’ cast passed on cosplay, they were out in force, with Harbour joined by Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes), Hannah John-Kamen (Ghost), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Valentina Allegra de Fontaine), Wyatt Russell (John Walker/US Agent) and more.

Dreyfus said about Valentina, who has shown up to pull some high-level strings in ‘Black Widow,’ ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,’ and ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’: “She, Valentina, is after power, control, and I would say just generally she wants to kick ass in the Marvel Universe.”

Stan, perhaps the longest-termed MCU veteran onstage, said that Pugh “stands out” in the film as the adopted sister of the late Natasha Romanoff, both creations of the Black Widow program, while Pugh herself hinted at the ‘Suicide Squad’-type vibes of the team by saying, “The joy of watching them together is that they don’t play well together.”

In the first footage from the film (shown only at Comic-Con so far), both Yelena and Bucky seem to be at an impasse in their lives, with Yelena continuing to be an assassin, while Bucky ends up in court.

But the action soon picks up as the team comes together at the direction of Valentina, with Lewis Pullman’s (rumored) Sentry apparently the target of some kind of mission – except that it’s all some sort of set-up to get rid of Yelena and the others. “There are good guys, and you’re bad guys,” Valentina tells the team. “But there are worse guys.”

Directed by Jake Schreier, ‘Thunderbolts*’ comes out May 5, 2025.

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‘The Fantastic Four’ gets a new title

Just prior to the huge ‘Avengers’ news, Kevin Feige welcomed ‘Fantastic Four’ director Matt Shakman and the cast – Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm/Invisible Woman), Joseph O’Quinn (Johnny Storm/Human Torch), and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben Grimm/The Thing) – to the stage for the actors’ first public appearance together as Marvel’s First Family.

The film begins shooting in London this Tuesday (July 27) in London, exactly one year ahead of its planned July 25, 2025 release, and has now been officially titled ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps.’

Shakman showed off some early pre-production and conceptual test footage for the movie, including images of the Fantasticar, Reed Richards teaching some sort of class on television, the Four preparing to launch into space, and a brief glimpse of Galactus – looking quite huge and humanoid – peering into a building.

The director also confirmed the period setting of the movie, saying, “We’re not just doing the 60s, we’re doing retro future 60s…it’s part what you know from the ‘60s, but part what you’ve never seen before,” hinting as speculated that the Four come from an alternate timeline. Shakman added, “We want to be true to the comics, but we also want it to be true to life.”

For their part, the cast stressed the “family” aspect of the Fantastic Four’s story, with Quinn saying, “We’re all going to work very hard to bring a feeling of a family to this film.” Moss-Bachrach mentioned that he sought out Hulk actor Mark Ruffalo to get advice on doing performance capture to play the Thing.

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The Fantastic Four’s portion of the Marvel presentation ended with the Fantasticar itself flying over the heads of the fans in Hall H, with one last bit of news: Marvel’s First Family will also appear in both ‘Avengers’ films – a perfect introduction to the mind-melting ‘Avengers’ news that concluded the presentation.

But now that the dust has settled, we should mention the news we didn’t get tonight: nothing on a new director for ‘Blade,’ no sign of ‘Shang-Chi 2’ or ‘Doctor Strange 3,’ no word on the future of legacy characters like Thor, Hulk, Black Panther, or Captain Marvel, and not a peep (save that tease about adamantium) about the X-Men or which movies will fill out Marvel’s slate in 2026 and 2027 around the ‘Avengers’ behemoths. Still, that ‘Avengers’ shocker should keep us all chattering away for a while…

Upcoming MCU Movies:

• ‘Captain America: Brave New World‘ (2025)
• ‘Thunderbolts*‘ (2025)
• ‘The Fantastic Four‘ (2025)
• ‘Avengers: Doomsday‘ (2026)
• ‘Avengers: Secret Wars‘ (2027)

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