Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday Confirmed to Include Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange

To paraphrase Doctor Strange: he is in Doomsday now. Actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Master of the Mystic Arts Stephen Strange, revealed what he described as a spoiler last week when a Variety cover story quoted him as saying that the spellcaster is sitting out Avengers: Doomsday. The Doctor Strange star said that his absence in the much-anticipated followup to 2019’s Avengers: Endgame is due to his character “not aligning with this part of the story,” but that Doctor Strange would be in “a lot” of 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars. “He’s quite central to where things might go,” Cumberbatch said.

As it turns out, Strange is so central to the multiverse-spanning saga that he will, indeed, appear in both Doomsday and Secret Wars. Cumberbatch re-confirmed his involvement in a new interview with Business Insider, saying, “I got that wrong. I am in the next one.”

However, Cumberbatch qualified his statement by adding: “Don’t ever believe anything I say.”

RELATED: Benedict Cumberbatch Reacts to Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom Casting: “What the F—?”

In another twist, it was Cumberbatch himself who was the first to reveal the news that he’s returning for Avengers 5 (previously titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty). But in 2023, Marvel Studios fired embattled Kang actor Jonathan Majors and pivoted away from the timeline-conquering villain of Loki and 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

During Marvel Studios’ San Diego Comic-Con panel last summer, Kevin Feige surprise-announced that former Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. would be returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe by donning the metal mask of Fantastic Four villain Doctor Doom in the newly titled Avengers: Doomsday (due out in May 2026). Avengers: Secret Wars will then cap off Phase 6 of the MCU and the Multiverse Saga, with both films being directed by Anthony and Joe Russo (who directed Captain America sequels The Winter Soldier and Civil War before tackling 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and 2019’s Endgame).

So far, Downey, Cumberbatch, and Chris Evans — who was revealed to be joining the cast in December — are the only confirmed returning cast members from the previous Avengers movies. (Evans most recently reprised his former superhero role as Johnny Storm/the Human Torch in Deadpool & Wolverine after passing the shield and mantle of Captain America to Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson in Endgame, but it’s unclear if he’s poised to return as Steve Rogers or a different multiversal variant.)

Spider-Man actor Tom Holland is expected to appear in Doomsday as Spider-Man 4 is positioned between the next two Avengers movies, and Hayley Atwell, who plays both Peggy Carter and the alternate-universe Captain Carter, is reportedly set to return with Evans.

It was also revealed at Comic-Con that the cast of The Fantastic Four: First Steps — Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn’s Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s Ben Grimm/the Thing — will be part of Doomsday and Secret Wars, along with Thunderbolts* stars like Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova/Black Widow, Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, and more.

Disney has dated Avengers: Doomsday for May 1, 2026, followed by Avengers: Secret Wars on May 7, 2027.