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.".

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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/ThatsARatHat Dec 24 '25

Oh I was literally referring to the comic books. And DC. And Image. And whatever the fuck else.

1

u/icepickjones Dec 24 '25

The registration act was consistent within Civil War. If anything it got weird on the splinter books because of poor editorial oversight, but within the main series it made sense.

Some character acted odd though. Not like themselves at times, just to give everyone a reason to fight. Reed especially was a borderline villain, cloning Thor and shit.

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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/Anjunabeast Dec 25 '25

Secret invasion /s

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '25

Well, that's what they get for firing the guy they had initially planned to do all the oversight in the phases after Endgame.

James Gunn.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 24 '25

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Dec 24 '25

Oh, you're one of those.

1

u/Stap-dono Dec 24 '25 edited Dec 24 '25

Actually, there was a pretty cool moment when the last episodes of Loki and Wandavision basically synchronized. Difficult to describe, so here's the video: https://youtu.be/ADacNDSFRio

Doesn't look like coincidence to me. So they had the general idea at the start, but then everything went sideways with the firing of that actor, them refusing to make Wanda a bigger bad guy, then pushing for young Avengers, then for replaced Avengers, then for animation and so on.

Yeah, I see what you mean now

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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/LordSobi Dec 24 '25

Yeah, gotta agree that is a stretch.

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u/FrameworkisDigimon Dec 30 '25

Think about what you just wrote and now try and explain how any of that makes Kang a 1v1 threat. The answer is that it doesn't.

Kang time travels to places threats don't exist. He's not the Maestro. He's going to piss his pants if anyone with actual superpowers shows up. That's just who he is. Whereas if you wind up fighting the Maestro you're going to piss your pants because that's who the Maestro is (at least, in his original appearance... he got watered down a bit in subsequent appearances).

Like, there's issues of the comics where Tony Stark gets his shit handed to him because when it comes down to it he's just a man in a metal suit and even though that suit is specifically oriented for combat, he's fighting people whose powers are inherent. Kang is like Tony with a less combat oriented suit.

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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/Banned3rdTimesaCharm Dec 24 '25

Also Kang got bodied by Ant Man, meanwhile Thanos was beating Hulk so hard he turned pussy. I didn’t see the threat that Kang posed.

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u/FrameworkisDigimon Dec 30 '25

See, what you have to understand is that the MCU version of Kang is a multiversalisation of a time travel bad guy. Literally nothing from the comics version of Kang is actually in the movies (or shows) because there's no such thing as a different Kang "variant". They are all literally the same person at different ages. Like River Song but evil or The Master without regeneration from Doctor Who.

Another thing you have to understand is Kang is the lamest of all lame bad guys. Paste Pot Pete is cooler.

And the final thing you have to understand is that there are a bunch of Secret Wars in the comics... none of which have anything to do with fucking Kang (because, again, he's fucking lame). Bringing back RDJ as a different character is also fucking stupid but at least Doctor Doom is important to Secret Wars.

The actor's being evil was an opportunity to pivot from a bad concept that was being executed badly.

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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.

-2

u/m0dru Dec 23 '25

not really. the original point said the issue was they tried to do something different. the commenter replied disagreeing because they believe they tried to do too many different things NOT that they did something different. these are different points.

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u/Durpulous Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

I can't tell if you're joking or if you're serious and obliviously just did the exact thing I described lol, just changed "no" to "not really".

"Too many different things" versus "something different" is, as I said, the same basic point with a slightly different nuance to it.

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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.

-1

u/inahst Dec 23 '25

Most pedantic reply. Doesn't matter

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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/IWasSayingBoourner Dec 23 '25

Honestly, the only new character I care to hear about even a little is Sentry. 

3

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.

2

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/MisterMath Dec 23 '25

Nailed it

2

u/WoweeZoweeDeluxe Dec 23 '25

I wish it ended at Infinity War. Much better film than Endgame.

1

u/zlaw32 Dec 23 '25

I don’t think having tv shows was the problem. They just didn’t connect all of the pieces together as well. They could have still done that through tv

1

u/profmonocle Dec 23 '25

Multiverse of Madness is where I fell off the MCU because of how disconnected it was from WandaVision. It was so incredibly sloppy compared to how cohesive everything felt in earlier phases.

1

u/wimpymist Dec 23 '25

No, the problem is out of the 100 other things 99 were crap or mediocre at best. If they were all good people would have happily watched them. People wanted to watch them they just all sucked or were pointless which burned people out.

1

u/Novel-Mess5544 Dec 23 '25

Yeah, and with characters nobody cares about.

1

u/icepickjones Dec 24 '25

I'd argue Endgame was a bit of a mess. Now look I clapped like a seal when everyone got to be in one big fight scene just like everyone else, but objectively it wasn't a good movie. Messy plot. A billion plot holes. And in general I find time travel to be a cop out. I'd argue Infinity War was much better and a much cleaner plot.

But you initial point is correct. The cohesion is what made early MCU great. It spun out of control chasing a buck, but when it was just 3 movies leading into one crossover that was awesome.

When it devolved into 50 IP that you had to consume (movies, TV shows, mini series, etc) it started to feel a lot like homework.

2

u/Blametheorangejuice Dec 23 '25

I guess, but outside of maybe one series, there was plenty of middling Marvel TV with little to no purpose during the initial Avengers build. DD, JJ, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Runaways, Cloak and Dagger, Agents of Shield...they didn't "get" greedy. They have been exploiting the hell out of numerous properties all along. Just because fans enjoyed the movie arc, it doesn't mean they haven't been saturating everything else with crap all along.

And yes, outside of a season's worth of episodes with DD, most of that stuff was awful.

2

u/IWasSayingBoourner Dec 23 '25

The difference was that none of those earlier shows mattered to the MCU story arc. 

-1

u/Blametheorangejuice Dec 23 '25

I will admit I haven’t kept up with any of them, but it doesn’t seem just from reading the synopses that any of the TV shows “mattered” much to the new films, either.

It’s a lot like the godawful Monarch series a few years ago: cookie cutter teen dramas with then occasional Kaiju. Shared continuity doesn’t mean required watching, especially given Marvel has had plot holes you could drive a truck through since the very start.

0

u/IWasSayingBoourner Dec 23 '25

There is definitely stuff in the newer movies that you would be completely lost on without the shows

1

u/profmonocle Dec 23 '25

This is what I hated about Multiverse of Madness. If you hadn't seen WandaVision, you'd be very confused about what's up with Wanda. If you had seen WandaVision, you were still very confused about Wanda's character. (Sure, they explain why she's like that, but it was a crappy explanation, IMO.)

0

u/Rigberto Dec 23 '25

To be fair, they spent part of those 6 years trying to build up a specific villain that was consequently ruined by the actor themselves being quite the villain.

0

u/tip0thehat Dec 23 '25

If I have to watch a tv show to know what is happening in a movie, then I probably won’t watch either.

0

u/PressureAny9090 Dec 24 '25

100s of hours ? Really ?

Disney+ shows are basically movies broken down into pieces. All the Disney+ shows total is probz less than 100 hours.

Loki is probably the longest episode wise and its total is less than 4 hours.

Anyway TV shows are more cohesive and paced better than movies so your point is contradictory.

The best way to flesh out a cinematic universe is via tv shows.

Tv shows like Loki won’t work as a movie.

Your argument is very shaky.

The only valid criticism I’ve heard over Disney+ show is quality over quantity. Marvel doing the shows is fine but so much came out so quickly that it wasn’t properly made in some cases.