Avengers: Secret Wars Taps Doctor Strange 2 and Loki Writer

Michael Waldron, who wrote on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and the first season of Loki, has been hired to write the screenplay for the upcoming Avengers: Secret Wars. So far, there are no details on exactly what the plot of Secret Wars will be, or how closely it will tie to either of the two comic book events that bore its name. Given Waldron's involvement, though, and the importance of the multiverse in Loki, Doctor Strange 2, and Spider-Man: No Way Home, it seems likely it will feature characters from alternate Marvel universes, not unlike the the Jonathan Hickman/Esad Ribic version from 2015.

Deadline first reported that Waldron is close to signing on the dotted line for what would be the sixth Avengers movie. Secret Wars is expected to hit theaters in November 2025, after Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton's Avengers: The Kang Dynasty drops in May of that year.

In addition to Loki and Doctor Strange, Waldron has written episodes of Stephen Amell's Heels, and a 2019 episode of Rick and Morty. His IMDb entry has him down as the writer of Marvel chief Kevin Feige's planned Star Wars project.

In the comics, the 1985 Secret Wars crossover by Jim Shooter and Mike Zeck centered on a cosmic entity called the Beyonder, who chose a group of both heroes and supervillains, and teleported them against their will to "Battleworld", a planet created by the Beyonder in a distant galaxy, to do battle amongst themselves and with the aliens on the world. In 2015, Hickman and Ribic's reinvention involved the Marvel Universe colliding with fan-favorite alternate universes, including the Ultimate Universe and the 2099 Universe, to form Battleworld, a world which exhibits aspects of the various universes. With echoes of DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, the end of Secret Wars brought some characters from the other timelines, with their whole histories intact, over to the main Marvel Universe.

Marvel has a crowded docket over the next few years, and it just got a little more complex -- especially when you're talking about the multiverse -- with the announcement that Hugh Jackman will reprise his role as Wolverine in Deadpool 3, coming to theaters on September 6, 2024. 

Marvel's Avengers: The Kang Dynasty will release in theaters May 2, 2025, followed by Avengers: Secret Wars months later on November 7, 2025.