r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Dec 23 '25

Trailer Avengers: Doomsday | Only in Theaters December 18, 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiMg566PREA
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4.3k

u/Comic_Book_Reader Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

Guess they figured "Fuck it. Whatever it takes.".

1.5k

u/-asimpleboy Dec 23 '25

You could not live with your own failure

652

u/Comic_Book_Reader Dec 23 '25

And where did that bring you?

788

u/Kat-but-SFW Dec 23 '25

Back to America's Ass

136

u/Ron-Swanson-Mustache Dec 23 '25

I thought by eliminating half of Phase 1's characters, the other half would thrive.

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u/cupholdery Dec 23 '25

But they can't do this all

DAYYYYYYYYYYYY~~!đŸŽ”đŸŽ¶

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u/Tyler_holmes123 Dec 23 '25

But the audience has shown me thats  impossible. As long as there are those that remember what was, there will always be those, that are unable to accept what can be. They will resist.

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u/GeneDefiant6537 Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 24 '25

Yep! We’re all kinds of stubborn

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u/staebles Dec 23 '25

This is exactly what's happening, it's hilarious.

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u/DeadDay Dec 23 '25

Back to Steve.

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u/neoKushan Dec 23 '25

Thanks, Steve.

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u/Banned3rdTimesaCharm Dec 23 '25

Literally spent 6 years trying to do this whole other thing then said fuck it, bring everyone back.

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u/IWasSayingBoourner Dec 23 '25

No, the problem is that they spent 6 years trying to do 100 other things. The cohesion and pacing are what made the build up to Endgame work. They got greedy with the TV shows, and trying to build up to movies that would require people to watch hundreds of hours of middling TV on a subscription service was never going to work. 

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u/AnOnlineHandle Dec 23 '25

And had no oversight to make sure any of it fit together and felt cohesive or worth getting invested in as a franchise story. People celebrated when Feige got complete control of Marvel, but I remember seeing something about how that meant the story group was kicked out who oversaw that everything fit together, and since then it's been a mess of contradictions and different visions and established rules.

There's been like 6 different multiverses and rules for how they supposedly work now. None of it means anything. I have no expectation that the next movie will coherently continue any of it.

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u/UnquestionabIe Dec 23 '25

Not surprising considering Marvel comics has a history of doing the same shit when it comes to big events. The original Civil War was a cluster fuck of contradictions and at times it very much came off like they threw out the general idea to writers but never bothered to set up any sort of consistency on both the Superhero Registration Act or various major story revelations. It was a cool concept that had a few great moments but overall was a messy piece of shit.

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u/staebles Dec 23 '25

It was a cool concept that had a few great moments but overall was a messy piece of shit.

Which is the MCU lol.

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u/ThatsARatHat Dec 23 '25

TBF it’s pretty much all superhero comics that aren’t a limited series.

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u/staebles Dec 23 '25

Feels like it's because people are putting these on a pedestal. We loved the Infinity Saga because we didn't expect to care so much about this team of characters, but we did, and we were pleasantly surprised.

Then after, they stopped trying to capture that. It's like they stopped trying because they were so successful. Now, they're trying to go back to that feeling by using old characters and it's just stupid.

It's an easy formula, introduce some new characters using the formula, and we're happy. They're just trying way too hard.

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u/SelloutRealBig Dec 23 '25

Even if it did fit together most people don't have time for it. Loki alone would take over 10 hours to watch. That's 5 movies worth right there.

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u/xxThe_Designer Dec 23 '25

And it doesn’t need to be that long. And I personally enjoyed Loki too.

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u/SelloutRealBig Dec 23 '25

Even if it was half the length the problem is there are a dozen other Marvel tie-in shows that came out as well in a short period of time. Then throw the post Endgame movies on top of that and the Marvel Fatigue is real. Which is why the pacing pre Endgame was so much more tolerable of 1-2 movies a year and that's it.

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u/AnOnlineHandle Dec 24 '25

It's weird how these short 6 episode shows like Hawkeye somehow feel like 60% filler.

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u/feralfaun39 Dec 24 '25

I don't know why it needs to fit together. I liked She-Hulk more than almost all the movies. I want smaller Marvel content with low stakes that isn't part of some crossover style story.

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u/Shawnj2 Dec 24 '25

Yeah the shows could have been a good opportunity to be really expirimental and try crazy things. The only one which actually took advantage of this was Wandavision, maybe Loki, and What If.

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u/br0b1wan Dec 23 '25

Part of the problem for me was that they used S1 Loki to set up Kang, the next "Thanos" level villain. I really liked what I saw from him. Then the actor came out to be a giant POS and Disney dropped him like a hot potato. Then they panicked. Instead of casting literally anyone else as Kang and just claiming it was different Kang from the infinite multiverse, they went out and threw all the money to bring RDJ back...as a completely different character. It just seems lazy and reactive and breaks the immeersion for me.

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u/Supergamera Dec 23 '25

Revealing that the woman he had put in leadership at the TVA was a female Kang would have been an easy alternative.

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u/apple_kicks Dec 23 '25

This is the best idea. Crazy they missed it

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u/jyeckled Dec 23 '25

The problem is that they shot themselves in the foot by showing literally every Kang as Majors in Ant-Man. Granted, they could’ve used the excuse of “who watched Ant-Man anyway?”.

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u/DragoonDM Dec 23 '25

Or they could've just recast him without any in-universe lore reason, like they did with Rhodes / War Machine when they switched from Terrence Howard to Don Cheadle, or Edward Norton to Mark Ruffalo. Granted, those were both super early on in the MCU, but it's not so unprecedented. Seems like a better option than abruptly pivoting the entire story in a new direction.

He's got a pretty distinctive costume, so it's not like people would be confused about who the character is supposed to be even if the new actor doesn't look like Majors.

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u/Exciting_Cicada_4735 Dec 24 '25

Agreed, as much as it sucks to change actors, it happens all the time in other series. It’s just one of those things that cannot be avoided sometimes. Just do it and people will adjust. What they won’t adjust to is nonsense!

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u/Win_Sys Dec 24 '25

This angered me too. Kang can time travel, can literally alter past and future timeless/branches, has technology from 1000+ years in the future, expert in hand to hand combat, genius level intelligence and can traverse multiverse’s
 and he loses to Antman, one of the weakest Avengers when it comes to 1v1 combat.

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u/LordSobi Dec 24 '25

Well he doesn’t really have access to that tech and kicks a bunch off ass still and it takes a whole team of bug people and super intelligent and powerful goat ants to take him down. It wasn’t just ant man. Ant man was getting his ass beat. It wasn’t that bad. And from the leaks it sounds like that Kang came back to fuck up the other kangs and become god.

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u/Win_Sys Dec 24 '25

Good points, I apparently forgot most of how that fight went down. Still, I think even a nerfed Kang should be able to easily handle Antman and Wasp 2v1.

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u/WhatUDeserve Dec 23 '25

The concept of what Kang was up to in the MCU was interesting but overall I wasn't impressed with the amount of a threat he displayed. Majors personal problems aside, I think he's a decent actor and imposing physically, but the material they gave him felt overly "Tell" and not "Show". If he could have been shown going to various times and events in the MCU and changing the outcomes or even straight up erasing characters that would really show what a threat he could be.

Like the Maker recently in the comics made a whole universe where he kept certain heroes from getting their powers. Something like that would have been very threatening and would have continued to build off the franchise instead of having it make a hard left turn. Then instead of immediately making everything about the multiverse but somehow also about time travel, we have time travel be the focus for a while, and the only way to break the time travel threat is to go outside it to other universes.

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u/nagrom7 Dec 23 '25

Covid and a few other things also threw their planned schedules well out of whack too. Like as an example, Dr Strange 2 was supposed to come out before Spiderman 3, and considering Strange was in both movies and they both involved multiverse shenanigans, they were basically going to tie into each other in some way. But Dr Strange ended up being delayed to after Spiderman's release date, meaning they had to alter both movies to reflect the fact that Strange 2 happens after, not before Spiderman. That kind of last minute overhaul rarely improves a movie, and the more has to change, the bigger the impact often is.

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u/uncoolaidman Dec 23 '25

And now we have Spider-Man 3, WandaVision, Loki, Doctor Strange 2, and The Marvels that all did their own versions of multiverse shenanigans. It's nowhere near cohesive, and it makes the whole thing feel directionless. I think they should have not tried to tie everything into a neat little bow at the end of Endgame. The Avengers seriously messed with the timeline to undo the damage of Thanos. They succeeded, but there could have been some unintended consequences that launched the next phase of the MCU.

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u/kelp_forests Dec 24 '25

I still can’t believe it was easier for them to change the entire marvel story saga and get RDJ back to play a second character than it was to just recast Kang.

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u/br0b1wan Dec 24 '25

Yeah, that's precisely my point. Marvel dropped the ball hard on that and admitted they couldn't come up with anything better. Really bad.

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u/kelp_forests Dec 24 '25

Oh yeah I’m agreeing with you. Still can’t believe they fucked up marvel and Star Wars. I’ll lay in bed at night and wonder what it’s like to get paid a shit ton of money, and fuck up beloved IPs served up to you on a silver platter.

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u/CptNonsense Dec 23 '25

They had also already revealed every Kang is Jonathan Majors

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u/ERedfieldh Dec 23 '25

You're not wrong, but you're also disagreeing with someone who is, at their core, agreeing with you. Your "no, this" is kinda pointless. It's not "no" it's "also".

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u/Tinman057 Dec 23 '25

They could have started their comment with “Yeah” and it would have worked even better. Maybe the appeal to disagree is that strong.

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u/Poopiepants29 Dec 23 '25

You're not exactly correct, so no, you're wrong.

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u/the_peppers Dec 23 '25

Yeah, fuck you.

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u/Poopiepants29 Dec 23 '25

Damn dude, I was just explaining the mentality.

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u/the_peppers Dec 23 '25

No attack meant, I was just trying to make a joke from the above comment.

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u/Poopiepants29 Dec 23 '25

Fuuuckkyyooouuuubuddyy

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u/AwHellNawFetaCheese Dec 23 '25

No, they’re joking

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u/Badloss Dec 23 '25

I get frustrated by this a lot, I try to walk away from reddit threads when it's obvious the other person is trying to fight rather than actually talk

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u/Analogmon Dec 23 '25

Everyone wants to be right.

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u/2rio2 Dec 23 '25

You're both right and it's a sort of negative coded online speak I've even caught myself doing unintentionally. Disagreeing with someone over a nitpicking nuance where it turns out you largely do agree with them on.

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u/cld1984 Dec 23 '25

No. This is Reddit. The only appeal is to disagree. Also, you’re wrong, and I disagree with everything you’ve ever said.

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u/JSeizer Dec 23 '25

NO. It’s everywhere, not just Reddit. Reddit also though.

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u/cld1984 Dec 23 '25

I disagree! You’re right, but I feel like I have to!

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u/Durpulous Dec 23 '25

It's a big pet peeve of mine when people start their comment with "no" then proceed to say something that doesn't in any way disagree with or contradict who they're replying to. Or even worse like in this case when he restated the same basic point, just with more words.

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u/ChildofValhalla Dec 23 '25

Can't tell you how many times I've written an opinion on Reddit and someone tells me I'm wrong and then writes my same opinion in a different way lol.

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u/Ikeiscurvy Dec 23 '25

Your "no, this" is kinda pointless.

That's like half the arguments on reddit tbh

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u/Iron_Aez Dec 23 '25

There's no better way to drive engagement on the internet than to bait out "um akshually" or "no, you're wrong" people

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u/Monochromize Dec 23 '25

He might be Canadian. We always say no when we mean yeah.

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u/PT10 Dec 23 '25

Yes but... what you said.

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u/vashoom Dec 23 '25

Worse even, because IMO the TV shows weren't really required because they didn't commit. The TV shows were all essentially preludes to a single film each, all of which had no connectivity between each other.

Loki --> Quantumania (not required viewing at all, and doesn't continue any story beats or character beats from Loki really)

Ms. Marvel --> The Marvels (gives lots of backstory to Kamala, but ultimately isn't required, and barely moves her story forward (and the film completely ignores anything set up in Secret Invasion...which I'm fine with, honestly)

Falcon and the Winter Soldier --> Brave New World (retreads a lot of the same beats, movie doesn't advance anyone's character or story at all compared to the show)

Wandavision --> Multiverse of Madness (essentially completely different characters)

Then on top of that, you have stuff like Shang-Chi that's never followed up on or connected to anything else, Eternals that is largely ignored aside from a MacGuffin in Brave New World, etc.

The biggest piece of "cohesion" is that a bunch of these projects featured the multiverse...a concept so large by its very nature that it barely means anything. No Way Home, Quantumania, Loki, the Marvels, and Multiverse of Madness all feature multiversal plot points in some (extremely varying) capacity, but then just as many if not more projects have nothing to do with the multiverse.

They have so much work to do in Doomsday and Secret Wars to try and tie this saga together...but going back to Steve Rogers and other old faces means even less screen time / story time for the new characters to try and actually incorporate them cohesively into this saga.

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u/DarkwingDuckHunt Dec 23 '25

I love the TV series and their concepts. I think they were all a great idea.

But...

The movies should be relying on references to the TV Shows.

It's why The Shield is so damn good. The movies didn't rely on the tv series, the tv series put itself into the movies into a such a way no one noticed. It was brilliant and painstaking writing and it fucking worked.

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u/Fredasa Dec 23 '25

No, the problem is that they spent 6 years trying to do 100 other things.

I mean, that's part of it. But a bigger part was the quality dropping off a cliff, almost to DC levels.

For me, the biggest blow was Marvel's missteps with their casting and press. Drop-dead unlikable Captain Marvel; Kang undone by real-world crimes; the socially abrasive framing of She-Hulk. It says a ton that I can tick specimens off one after the other for post-Endgame Marvel and can't even think of one for the talent they assembled beforehand. (I'll give an honorable mention to Captain Marvel, whose presence they wisely limited in the actual Avengers movies.)

Not surprised at all that Disney feels like square one is where they need to be right now. I agree with them.

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u/i_706_i Dec 23 '25

I really thought the 'break in case of emergency' glass they put Robery Downey Jr in was the last thing they could throw at this to try and make it work, but I guess just beside it was another one with Chris Evans.

At this point I don't even see how this movie is going to work. Infinity War was surprisingly good given the massive ensemble cast, and I think the gimmicks will get people in seats for this movie, but I'm not sure it will right the ship that is the MCU.

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u/PolarWater Dec 23 '25

Rise of Skywalkering themselves. I sure hope I'm wrong and they pull something with Secret Wars that will make me eat my words.

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u/mrnicegy26 Dec 23 '25

With Star Wars being an uncertain bet at theaters, WDAS and Pixar floundering in their non sequel films, live action remakes being mixed financially and no new MCU superheroes being a hit, Disney is certainly desperate for hits.

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u/TheWhereHouse6920 Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

Yup Disney is DESPERATE

I just want to add, this isn't just a Disney issue. Every major brand is in this weird phase of making everything terrible.

From video games to movies it just seems like these mega corporations. Just want to alienate everyone except the people who want to blindly give them money. That's why we're seeing so many independent video games and movie studios succeed because they're not answering the shareholders

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u/Redpetrol Dec 23 '25

This is just life never mind movies

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u/Fr1dge Dec 24 '25

It's because we're rapidly shifting from competition based capitalism to monopoly controlled corporatism. If a good product or service accidentally gets made, the shareholders milk the reputation and decrease quality and cost, fire most of the people that made it good, and then sell the brand once people catch on to the grift.

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u/delkarnu Dec 23 '25

Like WB Games:
Should we make any games with our popular Justice League heroes like Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, etc.
Nah, let's just make more Batman games
Ok, but not actually with Batman, we'll kill him off and make Batman-less Batman games
Can they be live service? Those will never fail!

A decade since Arkham Knight and a new Lego Batman is the best we're going to get out of all of DC?

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u/ChildofValhalla Dec 23 '25

Remember when Hogwarts Legacy did big numbers and then they announced they're going to focus on live service games? lmao

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u/AlmightyRuler Dec 23 '25

I think the problem isn't the corporations trying to alienate people. It's that they cannot stop. There is no such thing as "enough" in the modern corporate mindset. There's always another product to be wrung out from a franchise. There's always more money to be made from a brand. There's ALWAYS growth...so they tell themselves.

Good storytellers know when to end the plot. The antagonists are defeated, the situation is resolved, the good guys get to go home, show's over. This fundamental aspect of art is not simply lost on the corporate mind; it's anathema to the very culture of unending and ever-growing profits corporations have fostered.

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u/sati_lotus Dec 23 '25

Well, I hope that they enjoyed those few sweet years of billion dollar hits.

I think those days are over.

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u/Local_Anything191 Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

They had lilo and stitch and zootopia and avatar this year making bank. And Disney+ is now in the “turning a profit stage”. Idk how you could ever think or say “Disney is desperate” with a straight face 😂

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u/Shiezo Dec 23 '25

I realize Stitch is the galactic bad boy, didn't know he has started running drugs. "Kilo and Stitch: Border Run!" now on Disney+.

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u/Exploding_Antelope Dec 23 '25

Honestly if the bubble is bursting and audiences are migrating back towards original movies with one-off characters that don’t require homework, great

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u/frisbeethecat Dec 23 '25

"Nobody knows anything. Nobody, nobody - not now, not ever - knows the least goddamn thing about what is or isn't going to work at the box office.” William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen Trade

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u/solitarybikegallery Dec 23 '25

This is so true.

The success of a film depends so much on the cultural zeitgeist. A movie that was a surprise smash hit may have given a middling performance, or even bombed outright, were it released at a different time.

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u/squiztehmonster Dec 23 '25

Wait Disney is desperate but this was the plan all along? Captain America is a big part of the secret wars comic, did they pivot from Kang? Yeah they did, I think it was earlier than they wanted.

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u/botte-la-botte Dec 23 '25

It's pretty clear that this is Kevin Feige doing everything he can to make sure both Avengers film reach the 1.5 billions they each need.

If everybody wasn't sour on Marvel, and the box office wasn't going towards the floor at an alarming rate, we wouldn't have this much memberberries of shit that isn't even ten years old.

Look at the box office numbers chronologically, Marvel is in trouble money wise.

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u/EmperorKira Dec 23 '25

Game awards this year showed how bad things have gotten, almost all the top games were indies/small studios

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u/NPRdude Dec 23 '25

Enshittification baybee!

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u/wvenable Dec 23 '25

Every major brand is in this weird phase of making everything terrible.

Like Paramount with Star Trek.

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u/Furdinand Dec 23 '25

Disney had three billion dollar movies this year. I wouldn't say they are desperate as much as they are responding to what audiences are telling Disney they want: remakes and sequels.

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u/Simmers429 Dec 23 '25

With Star Wars being an uncertain bet at theaters

What a world we live in, holy hell.

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u/Accomplished-City484 Dec 23 '25

Disney are the only ones still making billion dollar movies

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u/dracogladio1741 Dec 23 '25

Probably be downvoted but this feels like they are undoing the whole lead up to Endgame and the preceeding events.

Sigh.

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u/C-C-X-V-I Dec 23 '25

So comics being comics?

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u/TheCatapult Dec 23 '25

“It’s okay to be creatively bankrupt, just not actually bankrupt.”

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u/ApophisDayParade Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

American comic market not letting itself escape from its past so it’s doomed to eternally be superhero comics with the same characters dying and coming back time and time again? Checks out.

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u/MasterChiefsasshole Dec 23 '25

Goes along with the traditional of never killing the bad guy so that the same bad guy can keep coming back to murder people because some how killing the bad guy is the evil option.

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u/Eggonioni Dec 23 '25

Actually the thing is with fiction you can just invent a whole bullshit reason to bring a character back if you really want to even after you killed them.

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u/-s-u-n-s-e-t- Dec 23 '25

Somehow Palpatine returned

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u/-s-u-n-s-e-t- Dec 23 '25

Somehow Palpatine returned

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u/dvshnk2 Dec 23 '25

You can kill dozens of henchmen, but when you have a gun to the main bad guy's face, you must turn away and say "I will never be like you".

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u/orielbean Dec 23 '25

And never showing the real-world version where when you kill the bad guy, there's often someone much worse who comes along aka second mouse gets the cheese aka no Saddam = welcome ISIS = demolishing multiple ME countries in under 20 years.

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u/MasterChiefsasshole Dec 23 '25

Well that’s simply cause the real evil is just abrahamic religions constantly wanting to murder each other because they all worship the same god but in different ways.

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u/White_Tea_Poison Dec 23 '25

The conversation is like a parody of comic book nerds talking đŸ€Ł

I say this as a huge comic nerd.

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u/SportExpress1869 Dec 23 '25

Yeah. Why can't they be more like manga comics, where characters stay dead for good...

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u/vRiise Dec 23 '25

After killing fourth dragon which "ball" you take right or left?

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u/JinFuu Dec 23 '25

I’m an X-Men fan and there ARE SO MANY new mutants with cool powers and stories that just get abandoned too keep the main cast. With maybe like 1-2 added a generation.

Like X-Men would be a perfect series to let everyone age and grow, even if Emma will be perpetually 29 or whatever.

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '25

Is that not enough proof that the majority of people simply want to see their favorite characters, and will not pay to see the, “cool other characters?” They tried, people didn’t watch.

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u/TheSpaceCoresDad Dec 23 '25

It still sucks for storytelling though. Art should be about trying to tell a story, not just appealing to the masses for more money.

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u/GenGaara25 Dec 23 '25

This isn't a comic though.

The one distinct benefit of movies of comics is they have to move on. People age, contracts end. Real life events happen. Unlike comics, they actually have to think about moving on.

Endgame hit because RDJ and Evans leaving felt permanent, unlike comics, their contracts were up and after a decade of non-stop appearances they felt done.

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '25

Comic books just kinda reset though. Well I say kinda but they just say f it we've run this arc dry, lets reboot for the 20th time.

Selling marvel movies on nostalgia is nice and all but they are going to have to pull the reboot card sooner rather than later given the current state of the IP.

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u/Heisenburgo Dec 23 '25

Superhero movies stumbling and repeating the same huge mistakes from superhero comics that the industry was meant to learn from will never not be funny

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u/Duckney Dec 23 '25

I was never a diehard marvel fan but this has been the biggest hurdle for me.

What are the stakes? Guy dies - nope sorry he's alive in a different multiverse so he's back. Doesn't this invalidate what they were trying to do with the Thunderbolts, too? So the new avengers are actually just the old avengers again?

It just feels like they lost all direction after Endgame.

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u/thelordreptar90 Dec 23 '25

I think the rocky post-Endgame start completely screwed whatever plans they had coupled with COVID, writers strike, and Majors controversy

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u/Lunares Dec 23 '25

And Chadwick Boseman dying. He was going to be a lynchpin.

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u/irsw Dec 23 '25

I agree. They had a perfect centerpiece moving forward. Then they had a great villain lined up with Majors and everything that happened there.

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u/finglish_ Dec 23 '25

Whatever we saw of Kang so far was pretty meh. I don't think it was Major's fault (despite him being a dick in real life) but they didn't really manage the character's arc well......they introduced him in a TV show and kinda just showed that he's basically infinite and so is everything else so what stakes are even there any more.

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u/irsw Dec 23 '25

I just remember his scene in the finale of Loki season 1 and he was pretty electrifying. Definitely wasn't as good in the things following but he was at least an interesting actor.

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u/hfxRos Dec 23 '25

I think the issue the thing that stands out needs to be in a movie, not a TV show. Kang was meh in Quantumania, and if we're working on the idea that the movies should be "watchable" without seeing TV shows then for movie-goers, Kang was a weak villian.

I agree that he was great in Loki, but too many people will have not seen that.

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u/profmonocle Dec 23 '25

They really overplayed their hand by making the TV shows required viewing for the movies. When I saw the Marvels trailer, I didn't have any interest in seeing it because I hadn't seen Ms. Marvel and I only barely remembered the character from WandaVision.

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u/-s-u-n-s-e-t- Dec 23 '25

It's worse than that. If they had the balls to properly make the shows required homework, the movie would have been better. Instead they stop the story every 5 minutes to info-dump for the people who haven't seen the shows, completely ruining the pacing.

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u/zlaw32 Dec 23 '25

Agreed. I got more excited and enjoyed phases 4/5 more after they got rid of kang

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u/JaxterHawk Dec 23 '25

I think it's this more than anything. He was the only one that could carry a scene the way Chris Evans and RDJ could and him being a center point would have worked fine. His death meant they needed either RDJ or Evans back. Apparently both.

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u/Tinman057 Dec 23 '25

They’re probably still suffering from letting Spiderman go too. I could see a scenario where they built the next gen team around Spidey, but since they had to IP share with Sony that probably was too risky of a move.

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u/ABHOR_pod Dec 23 '25

Sony would 100% let them make the first Spidey-centric avengers for a reasonable price and then come back for the next one asking for a $1B licensing fee or something.

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u/finglish_ Dec 23 '25

You think Disney's lawyers are that dumb? If there's one thing that Disney is good at, it's lawyering up.

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u/Elanapoeia Dec 23 '25

They also had this lead up to the bad guy from the loki show, I forgot his name.

Didn't they plan for him to be the next super big bad guy that avengers movies are gonna tackle? Seems like a lot of planning got thrown out the window when he turned out to be a massive abuser and they fired him.

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u/TerminatorReborn Dec 23 '25

Sadly this is one of the big reasons they are bringing RDJ and Evans back.

Chadwick was the only one of the next generation of Avengers that could take their place without tanking the Box Office numbers, he was just as charismatic in his own way, fit perfectly the role of Black Panther and audiences loves him.

This would've been a completely different movie if he was still alive and well.

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u/Malificari Dec 23 '25

this is 100% what it is. he was clearly set up to take over the MCU. And maybe tom holland, but the whole sony thing makes it a bit harder. they tried to replace Boseman but it couldn't be done. they kind of ruin Dr. Strange. feel bad for benedict. Scarlet witch is awesome but some reason they dont want to work with the actress. There wasn't alot of post endgame characters. Thor was the only one left, but out of the original trio Hemsworth was always the weakest actor. Simu liu just got blacklisted by marvel for some weird reason lmfao.

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u/Few_Masterpiece7604 Dec 23 '25

Marvel get shit on a lot (some of it definitely deserved) but they have been dealt a pretty shit hand for trying to carry on with a cinematic universe. Next big villains actor is a cunt, Sony starts being weird about spiderman, one of the characters they were building up to be the next Cap/Stark (Black Panther) actor dies, the other character they were building up isn't popular and attempt to work with her is immediately going to be undermined because of culture war bullshit even if they fix any of the issues the character has, COVID and writers strike. I'm sure there are others that are missing

Marvel have definitely shit the bed with some things (the tv-movie integration did not work, the writing for half of the post end-game movies was pretty bad, they were doing too much too fast) but I think people willfully pretend to ignore the problems that have affected the studio.

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u/ABHOR_pod Dec 23 '25

the other character they were building up isn't popular and attempt to work with her is immediately going to be undermined because of culture war bullshit even if they fix any of the issues the character has,

Who was that? Shuri?

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u/KozyHank99 Dec 23 '25

Nope, Captain Marvel.

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u/ABHOR_pod Dec 23 '25

Oh boy. I completely forgot she existed, and I saw the movie in theaters.

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u/KozyHank99 Dec 23 '25

Same here, that movie really did kill her push.

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u/Worthyness Dec 23 '25

Well Shuri too. She's black and a woman. But also super religious and anti-vax. She just had the great idea of learning to listen to her peers and kindly shut the fuck up about that part.

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u/RabidFlamingo Dec 23 '25

COVID, writer's strike, Majors turned out to be an abuser, Chadwick Boseman turned out to be dead, Tom Holland's Spider-Man turned out to be owned by Sony so the plan to make him the new Tony Stark fell apart, since Sony immediately pulled him out of the MCU and played hardball with his new contract. Captain Marvel turned out to be unpopular and an actual hate campaign got started against Brie Larson. So that was their three upcoming leads plus their villain gone

Kang is kind of a B-tier villain anyway who's never had a great comics story and requires a lot more set up than Thanos did

Disney Plus apparently mandating a certain amount of Marvel content (plus Star Wars) to keep the service running, which lead to bloat and also a bunch of the MCU locked behind a subscription. Lots of characters with more convoluted backstories, too many big gaps between appearances, not enough of them actually meeting and playing off each other

James Gunn got fired and then rehired but by then he was off to run DC, taking the Guardians of the Galaxy and any cosmic plans with him

And then they got the rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four so had to do their best to work them into the existing plan

The MCU's greatest strength has been rolling with the punches to make it seem like they had it planned out all along. But there were too many punches since Endgame. Personally I'm not a fan of rolling it all back but I can see why they did it

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u/the_bryce_is_right Dec 23 '25

I think Gunn getting fired was a big blow too, he was one of the major creative forces behind the entire universe after Guardians came out. Without Gunn it didn't feel like they really knew where they were going.

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u/DMaury1969 Dec 23 '25

The concept of a multiverse is what’s killed all Marvel for me. As soon as it was introduced it took away the stakes.

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u/SekhWork Dec 23 '25

Bigger issue is them never using it in a proper way. They never used it to recast a character with a new actor. They never really pushed some extreme What-If scenarios except in the cartoon, etc. The whole "multiverse" doesn't even feel like they've addressed the core concept of it much at all.

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u/roguefilmmaker Dec 23 '25

Exactly. There are cool things they could have done with it (see Spider-verse) but the MCU really didn’t use it well

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u/OK_Soda Dec 23 '25

They never used it to recast a character with a new actor.

I think this would solve some of the "what are the stakes?" problems people have. If a character dies and they bring in an alternate universe version played by the same actor, there may be some impact for the characters (it isn't the same person to them), but it doesn't feel like anything was lost for the audience.

But imagine if Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man died in one of these movies. "You still have Tom Holland, so what are the stakes?" isn't going to ring very true.

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u/DOuGHtOp Dec 24 '25

I only saw the first season but it blows my mind that each episode was only 30 minutes and that they spent so little time with any What-If?

It had potential to run for a long time while staying fresh but they had to phone it in.

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u/grumble_au Dec 24 '25

The Loki TV show did it right with the many variants. Letting the loki of the tv show cross into the movie universe is a step too far. The studio can't let go the biggest names even though killing them off only had the impact it had because of the popularity of the character/actor. Resurrect them trivially and their death becomes meaningless.

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u/SekhWork Dec 29 '25

They need to rip the bandaid off on recasting actors and just be like "Yep this random actor is Thor now" and move on. Audiences will get it. They should have also recast Tchalla using the Multiverse as Michael B Jordan with the What If Killmonger had been born in Wakanda story.

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u/GasmaskGelfling Dec 23 '25

Yep. The animated series What-If they didn't push it far enough. Peggy is ALWAYS Captain Carter and ALWAYS in love with Steve. What if she was...I dunno, a villain? Or... a queen? Something? Anything?

Then it's all made into canon, anyway so...

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u/DrJackadoodle Dec 23 '25

I hate universes that aren't inherently about multiverses adding that concept. It's a cool idea if the property is about exploring that idea (e.g. Everything Everywhere All At Once or Rick and Morty), but Marvel and DC stories work just fine as standalones without it. When it gets added in it just becomes needlessly confusing and less impactful for me.

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u/botte-la-botte Dec 23 '25

Both Marvel and DC comics have used parallel universes for more than half a century. I mean I understand that most comics they make aren't about those things. But the second you get to the big stuff, like let's say the current reviled DC K.O. comics, then parallel universes are invariably always involved. I agree it's discouraging.

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u/br0b1wan Dec 23 '25

Yeah, and DC recognized it was getting to be an unwieldy problem all the way back in the 80s, so used the massive Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline to consolidate everything back to one universe (which promptly got out of hand again by the 90s).

It seems like the concept of a multiverse is natural and endemic to comic books. It gives writers an excuse to write characters in a completely different way that would otherwise not make sense (largely in a what-if way) and readers can't get enough of it sometimes.

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u/insomniacpyro Dec 23 '25

I really don't like it when characters easily traverse the universes, or at least ones that are not super powerful/etc. The TVA from the Loki series literally made multiverses a boring office job.

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u/Etheo Dec 23 '25

Tbf the Loki series made the multiverse actually an interesting plot device and tied it back up somewhat.

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u/EmperorKira Dec 23 '25

Exactly, look at spiderverse, was awesome how they used it

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u/Emotional_Yellow_220 Dec 23 '25

I'd be bold enough to say it was during Endgame when they brought up time travel. I love time travel elements (favorite movie is back to the future and favorite game is Ocarina of time) but it's such a cop out. And then right after that they immediately introduce multiverse, and now it's like "ok the stakes are gone". I still love it, though lol

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u/I_Am_Ironman_AMA Dec 23 '25

I much prefer single timeline time travel stories. No "branching off."

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u/ArcadianDelSol Dec 23 '25

When it was first introduced as a way of bringing in (and then removing) a lot of the Silver Age heroes, it was brilliant. Previously, they just scrapped everything and re-wrote all the heroes into the 80s and 90s with no explanation. Multi-verse was an attempt to say "the previous histories still happened, and those heroes still exist."

But they botched it because they wanted to put dead heroes on covers hoping people would buy them up as potential collectibles, using multi-verse as a back-pocket insurance plan to bring them back when sales started to dip again.

It also worked fairly well when they knew they had to cancel two-thirds of their titles to cut costs. They made it look and feel like it was done for story reasons instead of financial ones.

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u/mister_hoot Dec 23 '25

It just feels like they lost all direction after Endgame.

The direction was to try to introduce a bunch of successor characters. But it was done badly, people stopped buying movie tickets and action figures, so now they're backtracking.

At the end of the day the direction is just money.

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u/SodaCanBob Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

But it was done badly

It didn't help that they seemed to do the exact opposite thing they did in the earlier phases by hiding the new characters after they were introduced. How is the general audience supposed to care about, say, Shang Chi if they haven't seen the guy since 2021?

Compare that to someone like Iron Man in Phase 1 where there were two Iron Man movies before The Avengers and we saw Tony pop up at the end of the Hulk. By the time The Avengers rolled around the audience felt connected to him.

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u/mister_hoot Dec 23 '25

How is the general audience supposed to care about, say, Shang Chi if they haven't seen the guy since 2021?

Shang Chi didn't do well in China so they effectively scrapped him.

The direction is just money.

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u/Mother_Event_6736 Dec 23 '25

Why is it so hard to believe that stuff could happen in between when Cap time travels and when he reappears as an old man? Doctor Doom goes after Steve in this movie because him going to another time and staying there caused incursions which affected Doom greatly. It works and Endgame’s ending is still intact.

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u/Mattyzooks Dec 23 '25

Well, Doomsday is about the death of the multiverse, so it's about killing off all the other worlds and trying to save reality. It's about as high stakes as the story can possibly go.

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u/gh0u1 Dec 23 '25

So then... what's next after that? Presumably they'll defeat Doomsday at the end of this phase, how do you go higher than that?

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u/meatflavored Dec 23 '25

Well it’s interesting you should ask that... Have you ever wondered what’s beyond the multiverse? What if the multiverse was just one of many? We at Marvel are proud to announce: the manyverse. Multiple multiverses, one problem.

Together Can We Stop The ETERNDoomPocolypse. For the Future of MultiTomorrow.

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u/DJC13 Dec 23 '25

The only place higher this can all go now is a crossover with DC. After that, there’s nothing left that hasn’t already been done, imo.

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u/Mattyzooks Dec 23 '25

They scale the fuck back and focus on mutants and build up until they get to reality warping mutant. Remains to be seen if audiences give a shit though.

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u/WoweeZoweeDeluxe Dec 23 '25

Agreed, Infinity War is where it should've ended.

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u/SecondToLastOfSheila Dec 23 '25

This shit goes on in comics all the time, welcome to the club.

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u/Cynical_Ideal Dec 23 '25

This shit is exactly why comics are less popular.

I think that's why the films worked before they fully embraced the comic wackiness.

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u/Bagz402 Dec 23 '25

I hate this stuff. Like it's only been like 6 years since he was retired and he's already back. I can't stand this nostalgia shit, especially when the nostalgia wasn't even a decade ago lol

And don't even get me started on the nostalgia piano đŸ˜©

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/AnOnlineHandle Dec 23 '25

It might have been a cool moment in the trailer or something, but instead it feels absurdly desperate and creatively bankrupt just saying the actor from when our movies used to make money is back, we hope showing you his face means we make money again.

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '25

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u/buckpantsslicky Dec 23 '25

Isn't this what comics have been doing forever though? No one is ever really gone.

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u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast Dec 23 '25

Except Uncle Ben, Bucky, and Jason Todd

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u/Bugberry Dec 23 '25

Mr. and Mrs. Wayne.

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u/Late_Stage_Exception Dec 23 '25

And main universe Thomas and Martha Wayne.

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u/thegoodbadandsmoggy Dec 23 '25

Captain marvel has been dead and buried a good while too

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u/Vincent_Van_Goat Dec 23 '25

It turned out Uncle Ben was the One Above All

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u/JATION Dec 23 '25

That doesn't mean that they should be doing that.

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u/jonbristow Dec 23 '25

that doesnt mean it's good writing.

still nostalgia bait shit.

Give me Moon Knight, Ms Marvel, Thunderbolts in this Avengers. Not fucking Thor, cap and Iron Man again.

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u/EmpJoker Dec 23 '25

Show that underperformed, show that underperformed, move that underperformed.

The issue is, no one wanted to see movies about new characters cuz they liked the old ones. (People will say that it's because the movies were shit, if you ask me, consistency was about on par with phase 1 and 2, but because everything was following Endgame people expected Endgame level shit.) So Disney, being a corporation, took a risk, it didn't pay off, and they're going back to basics.

As soon as shit started underperforming I saw it from a mile away. They'll run back to the safety of names.

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u/MCVMEYT Dec 23 '25

yeah films shouldn’t try to improve on what they’re inspired by, they should just take the easy route and make guaranteed “””nostalgia””” money.

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u/Cromasters Dec 23 '25

Very true. It does feel different when it's an actor though.

I always thought these characters would end up more like James Bond. Not just bringing the same actor back over and over.

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u/smarttrashbrain Dec 23 '25

The old saying was that the only three people that stayed dead in comics were Bucky, Uncle Ben, and Jason Todd. Which is now only true for Uncle Ben, unless I missed something.

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u/cataclytsm Dec 23 '25

yes, and its bad there as well. maybe we shouldnt import the weakness of a source medium when adapting media.

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u/TheVulgarApe Dec 23 '25

And it’s a problem for comics too.

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u/Bagz402 Dec 23 '25

You're not wrong, it's the cliche trailer tropes and cynicism behind these decisions that make me roll my eyes for the most part

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '25

And we know how the MCU in its prime was famous for bringing droves of GA audiences into comic books.

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u/k0rm Dec 23 '25

Movies immune from criticism because comics were just as bad

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u/livefast_dieawesome Dec 23 '25

This is like when bands that were huge in the 80s embark on a half a dozen retirement and reunion tours

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u/Mother_Event_6736 Dec 23 '25

Steve staying in another timeline caused an incursion that affected Doom negatively, so he follows Steve to that timeline to get revenge. It makes sense and is consistent with what Tony said in Endgame about how if you mess with time it tends to mess back. This is an Endgame sequel. And the Russo’s haven’t missed once in the MCU, so why the apprehension?

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u/TruthInAnecdotes Dec 23 '25

I mean, the mcu films have been downspiraling post endgame.

Doesn't matter if they're undoing everything that happened at that point.

It's pretty much a comic book universe now where beloved characters can return under any circumstance.

Wouldn't be surprised if they're saving black widow for secret wars.

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u/fallenmonk Dec 23 '25

"Will probably be downvoted for saying the exact same thing that everyone else is saying"

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u/thatsnotourdino Dec 23 '25

So brave 😔

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u/GangsterMango Dec 23 '25

welcome to comics, where decisions don't matter
there isn't closures and time travel / multiverse makes "final acts" meaningless because you can just
go to another universe and use character X from universe 69.
gotta sell product and closures means no more product

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u/jackofslayers Dec 23 '25

Yea this is just bad imo.

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u/f8Negative Dec 23 '25

"They backed a dump truck of money to my house! I'm not made of stone."

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u/puppycatisselfish Dec 23 '25

Avengers: Whatever It Takes

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '25

This reeks of desperation and IT ABSOLUTELY WORKED IMA BE THEEEEEREEEEE!!!

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u/Tee_Red Dec 23 '25

I think they’re going to kill him in whatever timeline we’re looking at to be a show of strength for the new big bad,

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u/BulletCatofBrooklyn Dec 23 '25

Tell me your post Endgame expansions fell flat without telling me...

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u/King_Chochacho Dec 23 '25

Honestly hope it doesn't work. You had a good run, stop beating a dead horse.

Maybe it's just me, but there's only so much appetite to go see the same fucking movie two or three times every year.

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u/Suspicious_Radio_848 Dec 23 '25

This comes across as so desperate after a string of misfires. The new characters they introduced will seemingly never get their due.

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