The first full trailer for Avengers: Doomsday has been released online offering a look at Marvel’s big-budget big hope.
“Something’s coming, something we may not be able to deter,” is the first line heard in the new preview which proceeds to bring back multiple characters from various Marvel movies and universes.
Returning Avengers featured in the trailer include Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Paul Rudd as Ant-Man and Chris Evans as Captain America while Fantastic Four’s Pedro Pascal, X-Men’s Patrick Stewart, Black Panther’s Letitia Wright and Thunderbolts’ Florence Pugh also appear.
There’s also a glimpse of Ian McKellen, returning as Magneto, who recently spoke about the film at the Piazza festival in Rome. The actor told the audience that “they got me at one point to destroy New Jersey”. He added that directing duo the Russo brothers “told me to look more furious: make it look as if you hate what you’re destroying. So I stood there and I shouted: ‘Mar-a-Lago!’”
The trailer teases an “unthinkable decision” as well as the arrival of Robert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom. The actor, who previously played Iron Man, is returning to play the famed villain in a move that is reportedly earning the actor an estimated $100m for both Doomsday and its follow-up Secret Wars.
Returning co-director Joe Russo has said they are “back to phase zero” of the MCU with the new film. “This is starting over from scratch,” he said. “We want to make sure everybody feels like this isn’t leaning on anything from the past.”
The film arrives at a difficult time for Marvel, once box office champions but now struggling to return to former glories. The last few years have seen adventures such as Thunderbolts, Fantastic Four: First Steps and Captain America: Brave New World achieving mediocre results.
But in 2019, Avengers: Endgame became one of the highest-grossing films of all time with a box office total of almost $2.8bn.
The Guardian’s Ben Child recently wrote: “the success or failure of this next superhero extravaganza might well decide the future of the entire franchise.”
Avengers: Doomsday is releasing on 18 December, the same date as Dune: Part Three leading box office pundits to predict a Barbenheimer-style showdown.
