Marvel returned to SDCC this weekend, and made some pretty crazy announcements for the MCU, the most notable of which is the return of Robert Downey Jr to the film franchise… as Doctor Doom! Here is a breakdown of all the reveals from the panel.
Avengers: Doomsday
Let’s start with the big one… Robert Downey Jr is back in the MCU, but not as Iron Man. This time he takes on the role of classic Fantastic Four villain, Doctor Doom. I’m sure many of you are asking “Wait? What?! How?!” Well, we don’t exactly know… However, when RDJ walked out on stage in a Doctor Doom mask and removed it (to a crowd losing their collective minds), he simply said “New mask, same task.” Whilst that is a short phrase, it does possibly say a lot. Tony Stark’s goal in the ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ was to put a “suit of armour around the world” to stop all these pesky alien invasions. The prevailing theory at the moment is that this Victor von Doom is a variant of Stark who had the same sort of idea, but approaches it in a far more brutal “Doctor Doom” way.
As part of this announcement, it was confirmed the fifth Avenger’s film will get a new name – ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ – and it will see the great Russo Brothers (‘Avengers: Endgame’, ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, ‘Captain America: Civil War’) return to the MCU fold to direct both ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ and the sixth film, ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’.
‘Avengers: Doomsday’ is due for release in May 2026.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
The “Doctor Doom” reveal leads us nicely to some news about the upcoming MCU introduction of Marvel’s first family. Now titled ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’, the upcoming film stars Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as The Thing, and Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm. We also know it will star Julia Garner as Silver Surfer and Ralph Ineson as Galactus, with Paul Walter Hauser, Natasha Lyonne, and John Malkovich in yet-to-be-disclosed roles. With the exception of the title change, we already knew all of this. So what new info came from the panel?
As you can possibly tell by the rather retro title card Marvel released, MCU boss Kevin Feige previously described the movie as “a period film.” We now know that it’ll take place in a retro-future 1960s setting, not on the MCU’s main Earth-616, and is not an origin story. Given we now also know The Fantastic Four will feature in the upcoming Avengers movies, and ‘First Steps’ will feature Galactus (the Devourer of Worlds), it seems entirely possible that the film may see the team actually lose their world to the big bad, and end up escaping to Earth-616, although I stress, that is pure speculation. Whilst not confirmed, it would make some sense if this is the reality where RDJ’s Doctor Doom also hails from.
They also showed some footage at the panel which featured Reed Richards teaching a science class called “Fantastic Science with Dr. Richards”, a version of the “Fantasticar” (which they also had on stage), Ben Grimm playing a “Let’s Make A Love Match” game, and a shot of The Baxter Building with Galactus looming over it.
‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ begins filming on 30th July 2024, and is due for release in July 2025.
Captain America: Brave New World
Next, we move on to a release which is coming much sooner than the other two films, ‘Captain America: Brave New World’, which lands 14th February 2025. We’ve already had a trailer for it (above), but now we have a bit more information about one of the cast.
We’ve known for a while that the great Giancarlo Esposito would be in the film, but not who he was playing. Now we do! Esposito takes the role of the King of the Serpent Society, aka, Seth Voelker, aks Sidewinder. For those of you not up on your Marvel villains, in the comics, Voelker was an Economics professor before Roxxon Oil Company chemically mutated him and gave him the power to teleport, starting his criminal career as Sidewinder. He goes on to form the Serpent Society, a group of snake-themed supervillains.
Esposito joins Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson / Captain America, Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres / Falcon, Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley, Liv Tyler as Betty Ross, Tim Blake Nelson as Samuel Sterns / Leader, and Harrison Ford as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.
Thunderbolts*
Lastly, we have the upcoming film ‘Thunderbolts*’, where the crowd at SDCC were treated to a trailer, which hasn’t yet been (officially) released online. The movie features Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, Wyatt Russell as John Walker, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, with Harrison Ford as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.
The clip from the panel showed Red Guardian and Yelena meeting before discovering they’d all been assigned to the same (deadly) mission, alongside Ghost, Taskmaster, Walker and Barnes… But had no idea why. People who were in the hall described it as having the same vibe as James Gunn’s ‘The Suicide Squad’, which is an interesting new addition to the MCU.
‘Thunderbolts*’ is due to be released 2nd May 2025 in UK Cinemas.
