Marvel’s Avengers Directors Tease Doomsday and Secret Wars Cast: “Anybody” in the MCU “Could Show Up”

The Russo Brothers are assembling Earth’s mightiest cast for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. Six years after directors Anthony and Joe Russo brought the 10-year Infinity Saga to a close with back-to-back Avengers sequels — 2018’s Infinity War and 2019’s Endgame — the directing duo are headed to London soon to film their next Marvel Studios epic, which so far includes Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange, Anthony Mackie’s Captain America, and the cast of The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

“It’s all in London, we’re shooting them fairly back-to-back,” Joe Russo told Deadline in an interview pegged to new Netflix movie The Electric State. “It’s a lot of work again. We may or may not survive, we’ll see.”

“But we’re very excited about it. We found a way into the story that we think is gonna be challenging for audiences, it’s challenging for us to execute. And it’s really exciting for us, it gets us out of bed to do it,” he continued.

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Before the Russos signed on to direct what is essentially a two-parter, it was reported last summer that more than 60 MCU characters could reprise their roles in the ensemble that is being described as “one of Marvel’s largest productions to date.”

Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, Karen Gillan’s Nebula, Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi, and Tom Hiddleston’s multiverse god Loki were among the characters named in the report, although it’s unclear how the roster might have changed after Marvel pivoted away from Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror and rebranded Avengers: The Kang Dynasty as Avengers: Doomsday.

“Who knows? I don’t know,” Joe Russo said when asked about a crossover with X-Men and Deadpool characters following last year’s dimension-spanning Deadpool & Wolverine, which introduced Ryan Reynolds’ Merc with a Mouth and Hugh Jackman’s metal-clawed mutant to the MCU. “I don’t know who we’re gonna see. I still don’t know.”

“Anybody in the Marvel bag could show up in this movie,” he added.

In 2015’s Secret Wars storyline, two universes — the Marvel Universe (Earth-616) and the Ultimate Marvel Universe (Earth-1610) — were on a collision course following a series of universe-destroying incursions. Only one universe could survive following a multiversal purge, so the heroes of each world were forced to battle before God Emperor Doom used the stolen power of the cosmic Beyonders to construct the patchwork planet Battleworld.

That means that heroes from any universe — including Marvel movies of the 2000s, like the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises — could conceivably appear in the finale of what Marvel Studios has dubbed The Multiverse Saga. Disney has slated Avengers: Doomsday for May 1, 2026, and Avengers: Secret Wars for May 7, 2027.