How did Marvel manage to top all the mind-blowing surprises of Deadpool & Wolverine in the very same weekend? By bringing Robert Downey Jr. back to San Diego Comic-Con to announce that he’s returning to the MCU… Not as Iron Man, but as Doctor Doom, the newly unveiled villain of Avengers: Doomsday and its sequel, Avengers: Secret Wars!
It’s probably a good thing that Doomsday (formerly known as Avengers: The Kang Dynasty) is still two years away, as the Marvel fandom is going to need that long to process this genuinely canon-quaking, franchise-changing twist of a casting decision. With directors the Russo brothers on board for these movies, too, Marvel Studios is really doing all it can to ensure it recaptures the magic of Infinity War and Endgame on these next two Avengers films. That’s also made abundantly evident by a fourth key player who’s been announced to be joining these projects.
Even though their involvement has been swept under the radar so far, you could argue that they are the most significant addition of all. Welcome back to the Marvel multiverse, Stephen McFeely…
Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars have found their screenwriter, in the safest pair of hands possible
Following Marvel’s big Hall H panel, it was confirmed that a screenwriter has likewise been attached to these two movies. We knew Avengers 5 was in need of a new scribe prior to the event. Following Quantumania‘s Jeff Loveness exiting Kang Dynasty last year, Doctor Strange 2‘s Michael Waldron was also recently announced to have parted ways with the project. With the Russos back on board, though, it’s no surprise that they have turned back to another trusted collaborator like Downey to rewrite the screenplay: MCU vet Stephen McFeely.
McFeely is most notable as one half of the unstoppable writing duo that provided the scripts for all of the Russos’ prior movies — he and writing partner Christopher Markus penned Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Civil War, and Infinity War and Endgame. In addition, the pair also wrote The First Avenger and worked on Agent Carter. This is the first time McFeely has worked on an MCU project without Markus, but to have at least one of the brains that gave us some of the franchise’s finest screenplays is still widely encouraging.
As much as it means to have the Russos back behind the camera and Downey back in front of it, we’ve seen too many times before that a Marvel movie is nothing without a strong narrative foundation so McFeely’s hiring is potentially the biggest reason to get excited about Avengers: Doomsday, coming in May 2026, and Secret Wars, following a year later in May 2027.
Published: Jul 29, 2024 07:40 am