Avengers: Doomsday Cast Announced! My Thoughts!
Yesterday was an exciting day for Marvel fans. We finally got the cast for Avengers: Doomsday releasing next year. We finally know who’s going to be in this movie. Am I excited? Am I nervous? Does this raise my excitement for it? Let’s talk about it!
General Thoughts: The way this was announced was so weird to me. It was a live stream that started at 8am pacific time and ended about 1pm. They brought out chairs for every single cast member about every 10-15 minutes. We didn’t know how long this stream was going to go. It was a very strange way to announce this big piece of information. As for the casting itself it was both a mix of who I expected to be in there, some big surprises, and people that I’m shocked were not announced. I was having so many different emotions as I was watching the stream. The first 90 minutes or so was Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Mackie, Paul Rudd, Sebastian Stan, and Florence Pugh. Most of the people announced early on were pretty predictable and names that I expected to see. Then we got X-Men announced and that’s when things took a bit of a turn. And then it ended on a lackluster note that was so disappointing and surprising that some major cast members were not announced.
I think what was always going to be a frustration with whoever was announced was since we don’t know what this movie is going to be. It’s hard to get excited for the cast. You could have announced just about anybody and I probably would have had the same reaction. The MCU has done such a poor job of building this movie that I don’t know what it is. I hear that Chris Hemsworth is coming back, that’s cool but what’s his role in the movie? What’s Anthony Mackie’s role in the movie? What part does Tom Hiddelston play in this? I don’t know. It’s cool that we got names and we know who’s coming back. But without knowing anything beyond that, it’s hard to get attached to any of these names because I don’t know what these movies are going to be. As far as specific castings, let’s dive into what these mean.
- The Obvious Ones: Several of the names announced in the first 90 minutes weren’t surprising and they were pretty obvious names. Paul Rudd, Simu Liu, Tom Hiddelston, Sebastian Stan, Chris Hemsworth, Letitia Wright, and Anthony Mackie were all pretty obvious names. I figured these people would appear here and be some of the major characters in this movie. There’s not much to really comment on here because it was pretty predictable and I had a good feeling they were going to be in this movie.
- Thunderbolts* Announced…Sort Of: Again, not to surprising but Thunderbolts* are in this movie. The team that we’ll see in the movie in May will be in this movie. I already mentioned Sebasitan Stan, not being too surprising. Florence Pugh is another one that’s not too surprising. What’s interesting about this is they announced all but one member of the team being in this movie. One member that we know is in the movie was not announced here. I think we know what’s going to happen to that character. I’ve seen some people wonder does this ruin the experience of Thunderbolts*? It’s tough to say without having seen the movie but in general we know that the entire cast is basically returning, we know they’re not dying. I was thinking that somebody was going to die. It’s kind of confirmed that at least one member is. I was thinking maybe Yelena or Red Guardian dies, they were announced as part of the cast. Maybe some of the shock value of Thunderbolts* was going to be lost but I don’t think it’ll affect the overall cinematic experience of the movie. I’m still very excited for this movie.
- The Fantastic Four will appear: This was kind of surprising the way they announced this. The second name announced was Vanessa Kirby, Sue Storm. The second to last name announced was Pedro Pascal. They announced the entire Fantastic Four over the course of this multi-hour long livestream. This wasn’t surprising since it was announced at San Diego Comic Con last year that they would be in this movie. My theory is that RDJ is the Doctor Doom of this Fantastic Four’s universe. In the mid-credit scene we’ll get our first look at RDJ’s Doctor Doom.
- Lots and Lots of X-Men: This delivered some of the most exciting and surprising names on here. The first X-Men name announced was Kelsey Grammar as Beast. That wasn’t too surprising considering they got him to return in The Marvels. Several names later we got Patrick Stewart. He was in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. So it’s not too surprising that he was announced. If we’re going multiverse, we’ve established that Stewart is willing to return. Then after that we got Ian McKellen. That one shocked me. McKellen doesn't appear in the MCU yet. The last time we see McKellen was in Days of Future Past 11 years ago. Even more surprising after that was Alan Cumming and Rebecca Romijn as Nightcrawler and Mystique are returning. Clearly, they’re leaning into the original X-Men. After this was announced I figured we’ll be seeing James Marsden’s name and we did. This was a cool announcement. I’ve always been a big James Marsden fan. I think he’s one of the wasted casting choices in the comic book movie genre. Getting to see him again hopefully in a comic accurate suit sounds awesome. One final fun one in here, Channing Tatum as Gambit. This was surprising and fun. People were talking a lot about Channing Tatum as Gambit after Deadpool & Wolverine came out. I thought that was going to be a one and done deal. Clearly not. They’re leaning hard into the X-Men and the original X-Men. I’ll do a blog post tomorrow that’s also very interesting talking about who’s not in this movie. With the X-Men names that were announced, it’s also very interesting to talk about who wasn’t announced.
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