Two years after announcing Avengers 5 aka The Kang Dynasty at the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige took the Hall H stage at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 to announce a different take on the project. It’s now called Avengers: Doomsday.
The reveal ends months of speculation that Marvel would not go forward with its original plans to position Kang, previously seen in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Loki season 2, as the main villain of its next big Avengers installment. Last December, Marvel Studios parted ways with Kang actor Jonathan Majors after he was found guilty of assault and harassment charges. While recasting the multiversal role and sticking to original plans may have been on the table, Marvel ultimately decided to go a different direction that would still lead the ongoing mega-franchise toward the next Avengers movie, Secret Wars.
The Avengers announcements started with the Russo Brothers coming back to direct both of the next two movies. But that wasn’t the only familiar face for Marvel fans. Once the Endgame directors were onstage, they revealed that another story would be needed to help set up Secret Wars and another character. With that tease, they announced the new title for Avengers 5 as Avengers: Doomsday, as well as the actor playing Doctor Doom himself: Robert Downey Jr. The Iron Man actor, and still Marvel’s biggest star, will be returning to the MCU as a villain this time.
Despite having a place on the release calendar for two years, Marvel never formally announced a director to helm The Kang Dynasty. Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton was in talks to direct, but eventually stepped away to work on Marvel’s Wonder Man. Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness wrote the original incarnation of the film, while Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Loki writer Michael Waldron is believed to have written the most recent draft, at no point could Marvel lock down a name to command the enormous production.
Avengers: Doomsday will hit theaters on May 1, 2026.
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