Even though Avengers: Doomsday has finished its five-month principal photography, precious little is known about the film. Joe and Anthony Russo have dropped the odd cryptic hint here and there, but little about the first half of the epic two-parter has become public knowledge outside the fact Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom is set to be the big bad. In Doomsday, at least. But the rumor mill has definitely started working overtime. Some think Downey Jr. will be playing both Doom and Iron Man. Others think it’s going to end up being an adaptation of the 2012 crossover event Avengers vs. X-Men.
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But what about another theory, that those cast members playing the X-Men are actually going to be playing two different versions of the X-Men? There are a few reasons to believe it’s going to play out as such. Let’s unpack them now.
The Costumes Reveal Showed X-Men Who Looked Distinctly Separate from Their Fox Counterparts
Thus far, the best idea we have about how the characters will look in Avengers: Doomsday comes from the bags that crew members were given for working on the Russos’ film. And, as one can see, most of the characters remain mostly unchanged from the last time they were seen in an MCU live-action project.
Each of the Fantastic Four (save for what is ostensibly Franklin Storm in the bottom righthand corner) look just as they did in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. The same applies to those who are members of the New Avengers, with U.S. Agent still donning the cap he wore in the tag sequence of Thunderbolts*.
The outliers are the X-Men. Professor X, Mystique, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, and Magneto (assuming he’s the one covered by the bag’s label, which is highly likely considering Ian McKellen is the only cast member not identifiable) all look more like their X-Men ’97 counterparts than the versions we were introduced to in the classic Fox X-Men movie trilogy. They don’t look identical to their ’97 versions, but certainly more so than they did in the aughts movies or any subsequent appearances in the likes of X-Men: Days of Future Past.
However, when you factor in that Beast (or at least what we see of him) looks precisely like he did in both The Marvels‘ tag scene and X-Men ’97 it certainly seems as though Doomsday is going to at least somewhat feature live-action takes on the ’97 characters. Then the question becomes why would Disney and Marvel go out of their way to bring back just actors from the original trilogy, without a single character from X-Men: First Class to Dark Phoenix?
For that matter, why wouldn’t they just cast new actors who are as close as possible to the animated characters? The only answer is that they’re going to pay respects to X-Men, X2, and X-Men: The Last Stand. Thusly, it certainly seems as though we’re going to get these trilogy actors playing more than one version of their mutant characters.
Channing Tatum’s Hints
While promoting his new movie, Roofman, Tatum told Entertainment Tonight that Avengers: Doomsday is going to have more jaw-dropping moments than Deadpool & Wolverine. In fact, a lot more.
In Tatum’s words, “I don’t know how to describe it to you. It’s going to make your brains ooze out of your ears. Like in the way I knew when Blade walks on screen in Deadpool & Wolverine, people are going to physically lose their actual minds. It’s that, but I don’t know, maybe times 50. It’s gonna be one of them things. As a comic fan, you’re just not ready.”
Could this all just be hyping up a project without shedding light on any details? Of course, but one must also remember that Tatum is a noted fan of Marvel, in particular Gambit. So, if he’s saying there are moments comparable to Wesley Snipes’ Blade coming into the shot, those seem like words worth taking to the bank. We’ll just have to wait until December 18, 2026 to find out for sure.
Are you excited for Avengers: Doomsday? How about for the return of the original cinematic X-Men? Let us know in the comments.
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