Entertainment
10 Ways the MCU Can Win Us Back in ‘Avengers: Doomsday’
The Marvel Cinematic Universe may be on the up and up thanks to the reinstatement of Bob Iger as Disney CEO and the critically successful release of Thunderbolts*, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and—most recently—Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but that hasn’t stopped people from being worried about what’s to come and the failure or success of Avengers: Doomsday. This is especially true regarding the casting of Robert Downey Jr. as the villain of the film, Doctor Doom. The fan response to this news was and still is unlike any kind of reaction Marvel has gotten for their MCU projects ever.
As stated, though, the MCU and Marvel Studios are on the uphill climb to where they were before Phases Four and Five, so all hope is not lost for Avengers: Doomsday and the following film, Avengers: Secret Wars. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo need to really blow people away with the fifth Avengers movie to fully win fans back to the MCU, as it’s the project with the most hesitation behind it from audiences. However, the Russo Brothers made the extremely excellent Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, so there’s a good chance they can pull this off. There are things they need to make sure they do, though, if they’re going to win the MCU fans back completely. This really is a make-or-break movie for Marvel, and there’s no doubt that they already know it.
10
Balance the ensemble
If one thing is true about the cast of Avengers: Doomsday, and the MCU as a whole, it’s that there’s a gigantic cast that always seems to be growing. If the fifth Avengers installment is going to manage a cast that large, the directors are going to need to employ the same strategies they did with the last few entries if they’re going to keep things feeling streamlined and not too jumbled.
What made the likes of Avengers: Infinity War work so well was the fact that they managed to balance their large ensemble cast—keeping every character important, without them overstaying their welcome. Was Avengers: Infinity War lightning in a bottle (since Avengers: Endgame had a much smaller main cast)? Only time will tell.
9
Thrilling action
Does anyone really have any doubts about whether Avengers: Doomsday is going to have great action? Marvel Studios films have always been pretty good about providing fast-paced and high-flying action, especially in all of the Russo Brothers’ Marvel projects. That doesn’t mean there isn’t room to fumble, though, and they need to keep up their pace with fight sequences if they’re going to keep people invested in Avengers: Doomsday. With all the new MCU characters that are being introduced, as well, they have all the chance in the world to provide new and exciting action scenes.
Characters like Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and his Ten Rings, The Fantastic Four, Namor (Tenoch Huerta), and many more have unique abilities that could add so much to choreography and visual spectacle. Team-ups between characters like these could allow the Russo Brothers to introduce fights like audiences have never seen before in the MCU, which would make these sequences super memorable, and that will allow Avengers: Doomsday to feel special. The war scenes they managed to pull off in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame were so well-executed that it’s hard to believe they won’t bring good action to Avengers: Doomsday, though.
8
Bring a great cliffhanger ending
If Avengers: Doomsday is the first part of a two-part story ending with Avengers: Secret Wars, then that would mean it’ll most likely have a similar format to Avengers: Infinity War—the first part to the ending of the Infinity Saga. What made the ending of that MCU movie so great was that it didn’t just end with a full-circle moment—thanks to Thanos (Josh Brolin) being the protagonist of that film—but simultaneously a cliffhanger, as well.
If they’re going to secure more butts in the seats of theaters showing Avengers: Secret Wars, they’ll want a similar cliffhanger at the end of this one. This obviously means that, more likely than not, Doctor Doom is going to take the win, and the remaining Avengers are going to have to pick up the pieces in the sixth movie.
7
Know their priorities
If Marvel Studios and the Russo Brothers need to do one thing, it’s to keep their priorities in check. They need to know what the fans want and are looking for from Avengers: Doomsday, while still making decisions that are right for the story. There really shouldn’t be too much setup for stories outside of what’s to come right after in Avengers: Secret Wars, as it could really clutter the story. No one wants to take time to set up the next Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings film (even though they really should get on that) while Doctor Doom is threatening the universe—most likely the multiverse—for 99% of the runtime. A sequel to Shang-Chi’s film is just an example, but the reality is there.
With the soft reboot coming for the MCU after these next two Avengers films, there’s a chance that there won’t be anything to set up and distract from the core plot of Avengers: Doomsday, but they also run into another potential problem. They need to ensure they don’t focus too much on characters that don’t matter as much to the plot as others do. What made Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame great is that they gave smaller and less important characters moments to shine without taking away from the more important ones. After the snap, they only kept around characters that were absolutely necessary to tell the story in Avengers: Endgame, which served them incredibly well.
6
Stay away from nostalgia bait
With so many characters coming back from previous franchises—like the X-Men—it can most definitely be really tempting to want to use nostalgia bait to get audiences excited, rather than good plot beats. The Russo Brothers haven’t had issues with this in the past two Avengers movies, but with the number of previous Marvel franchise characters coming back, the risk is definitely still there.
The inclusion of the 20th Century Fox universe characters—and other franchises, too, if one is to assume—is no fluke, and done for a reason. They want people to see their favorite old characters in the new The Avengers flick; they just have to ensure that they keep themselves from not giving them a good reason to be there. A movie that was amazing at this was Spider-Man: No Way Home, in the way that the old Spider-Man franchise characters all served the story in some way, shape, or form.
5
Give the VFX artists time to cook
One of the biggest problems with Marvel for quite some time has been the fact that they have generally treated their VFX artists pretty poorly. This has led to shoddy visual effects at times, especially in the post-Avengers: Endgame era. Most notably, movies like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Thor: Love and Thunder, which are already movies that struggled to find quality in the first place. This isn’t the visual effects artists’ fault, though, as it’s commonly known that they are put under ridiculous time constraints, less-than-ideal working conditions, and are wrongfully blamed for the quality of effects. When a film studio lets its VFX artists have the time to pull off what they need to do successfully, they are always rewarded with some visually gorgeous scenes that are unforgettable.
Not only do they need to improve on this because it will only make their content better, but because it’s genuinely just the right thing to do, for the sake of their artists who are making their projects possible in the first place. So they won’t just get a better quality film out of it, but a lot more good faith from audiences everywhere who are upset with both the quality and the treatment of their hard-working artists. With the recent strikes, people are now more aware than ever of the kind of working conditions that artists can be treated to in the industry. Of all the issues Marvel Studios has had these last five years, this one is one of the biggest, most impactful, and most brand-damaging. This isn’t just crucial for winning fans back in Avengers: Doomsday, but for the entire future of the MCU. If this trend continues, it could spell really bad things for their public reputation, which, if ruined, could sink the ship for good—genuinely.
4
Make the past matter
The biggest, most proclaimed worry among fans about Avengers: Doomsday is that, when it came to ending the Infinity Saga, there was a lot of buildup. Thanos may not have appeared much before his grand entrance in Avengers: Infinity War, but the likes of the Infinity Stones were being built up from what felt like day one—also known as when the Tesseract (the Space Stone) appeared in Captain America: The First Avenger.
The worry comes with the fact that, as far as fans know, there really hasn’t been any buildup to Avengers: Doomsday. There’s a chance that Doom’s been pulling the strings from behind the past two Phases, sure, but only time will tell—maybe he could be out for the many artifacts discovered in Phases Four and Five, like the Ten Rings. Fans and general audiences alike want to feel rewarded for watching the last grouping of films, and maybe they would have if they kept Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) around—who was being built up through both the Loki and Ant-Man franchises—but that’s no longer the case. So, the Russos have some real legwork to do if they’re going to make Doom feel earned.
3
Keep it focused
With the number of characters being juggled in every The Avengers film, directors will always run the risk of their story becoming unfocused and scatterbrained. With how disjointed the MCU has felt since Avengers: Endgame, the chances of losing sight of things and getting distracted are higher than they have ever been before. With all the new characters coming into the fray who have major plots of their own, it could be far too easy to get sidetracked in a character’s introduction and exposition, or even a side plot that doesn’t have much to do with the main plot.
A great example of a time this has happened is the notorious Avengers: Age of Ultron, where the story is truly all over the board. It’s setting up the Infinity Stones, dealing with Ultron (James Spader), Vision’s (Paul Bettany) introduction, and developing a meaningless relationship between Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo)—far too many things coming together as one very convoluted plot. Even Avengers: Age of Ultron‘s biggest defenders can agree that this movie was done dirty with how many things it was trying to do, whether to the fault of Joss Whedon or Marvel Studios executives. Why did they insist on these meaningless extra plot lines? No one really knows. If a movie with fewer characters, like Avengers: Age of Ultron, could get as unfocused as it did, there’s a lot of fear when looking at a movie with a cast the size of Avengers: Doomsday.
2
Have genuine emotional weight
It cannot be denied that The Avengers franchise—while filled with blockbuster spectacle—has always had a plethora of emotional weight behind its stories. A lot of this comes from the bond between the original team of Avengers, but with so many new characters being involved—who have never really interacted before—they’re going to have a hard time delivering the same kind of connectedness, which means they’ll need to find emotional weight in other corners of the plot.
There’s a large chance that Doctor Doom is going to have a horrifically tragic backstory, which would bring in a lot of emotional significance. Regardless of how it’s brought in, it needs to be present, regardless. Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars alike need to have a lot of emotional weight in their plot, and one can only hope the Russos really lock in on this.
1
Make Robert Downey Jr.’s Doom Work
If there’s one thing that people are extremely vocal about when it comes to the next two The Avengers movies—Avengers: Doomsday, especially—it’s whether or not they’re going to be able to make the casting of Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom actually work. Ever since the casting announcement, it’s been an incredibly hot topic. How on Earth is Downey Jr. going to play Doctor Doom so soon after the end of his reign as Iron Man in Avengers: Endgame? Why would they make the decision to cast him when there is a plethora of other actors who would absolutely own the role? These are two of hundreds of questions being asked by fans, general audiences, and critics alike.
It’s so out there that one can truly only make a judgment call after seeing the film (as trailers probably won’t depict exactly what they’re doing either). While there’s a gigantic chance they could fumble the bag, there’s just as big a chance that they rock the house and provide an intensely great villain. The Russo Brothers brought the world Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame, so it’s hard to believe that they’ll suddenly drop the ball out of nowhere, and on a film with such grand importance. The chance is there, though, and the aspect of the film that has the biggest chance of making that happen is Doctor Doom. One can only hope that they have a very specific vision for Doom, and it’s simply something nobody could expect and that will work well because it’ll be so specific to this universe and never really done before.
Avengers: Doomsday
- Release Date
-
December 18, 2026
- Runtime
-
165 Minutes
- Writers
-
Stephen McFeely, Michael Waldron, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers
You must be logged in to post a comment Login