I’m punting on further Star Wars: The Old Republic posts for a couple weeks so that I have more time to play through Legacy of the Sith and its followup content. Instead, tonight I’m going to see Thunderbolts*, so today I’m going to take a look at March’s cast reveal for next year’s Avengers: Doomsday.
The One We Knew for Sure
- Robert Downey, Jr. as Victor von Doom / Dr. Doom
blah blee blah
[The cast reveal only had the actors’ names. Aside from Downey as Doom, none of the rest have been listed with characters they’re playing. The characters listed are the ones they’ve played in the past.]
Avengers, Old and New
- Chris Hemsworth as Thor
- Paul Rudd as Scott Lang / Ant Man
- Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson / Captain America
- Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres / Falcon
blah blee blah
Fantastic Four
- Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic
- Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm / Invisible Woman
- Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm / Human Torch
- Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm / Thing
You can’t have Doom without Richards, can you?
Thunderbolts
- Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova / Black Widow
- Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier
- Wyatt Russell as John Walker / US Agent
- Lewis Pullman as Bob1
- David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian
- Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr / Ghost
Three things jump out here. First, Olga Kurylenko is absent, as she has largely been from the promotional materials, adding more fuel to the “Taskmaster dies in Thunderbolts*” fire. Second, everyone else is here, probably meaning that everyone else probably lives (there could be some multiverse shenanigans going on). Third, one of the big guesses for the asterisk is the team will be rebranded as some kind of B-list Avengers (Dark Avengers, Secret Avengers, Avengers Who Just Punch and Shoot), and them being in the Avengers movie maybe hints more at that.
Post-Movie Update: B-Vengers. Heh. And yep, Taskmaster died.
X-Men
- Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier / Professor X
- Ian McKellan as Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto2
- Kelsey Grammer as Hank McCoy / Beast
- James Marsden as Scott Summers / Cyclops
- Rebecca Romijn as Raven Darkholme / Mystique
- Alan Cumming as Kurt Wagner / Nightcrawler
- Channing Tatum as Remy LeBeau / Gambit
Well, we all wondered how Marvel would go about bringing the X-Men into the fold. Some big surprises here – Alan Cumming is willing to be Nightcrawler again, and Mystique, killed off in Dark Phoenix, is apparently not so dead.
There are some names absent from this list; I’ll get to them in a minute.
Others
- Letitia Wright as Shuri / Black Panther
- Winston Duke as M’Baku
- Tom Hiddleston as Loki
- Simu Liu as Shang-Chi
- Tenoch Huerta as Namor
Blah blee blah
Those Without Chairs
Kevin Feige has said the chair reveal wasn’t the full cast list. There are a few others who have been attached to the film but didn’t get chairs: Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter), Benedict Cumberbatch (Stephen Strange / Doctor Strange), Tom Holland (Peter Parker / Spider-Man), Jeremy Renner (Clint Barton / Hawkeye), and Benedict Wong (Wong).
Chris Evans has denied being in the movie, but he wouldn’t be the first to say he’s not when he is.
Who Else…?
There are some missing Avengers and associates: Don Cheadle (James Rhodes / War Machine), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Brie Larson (Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel), Evangeline Lilly (Hope van Dyne / Wasp), Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner / Hulk). Elizabeth Olsen (Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch) has seemingly joined Evans in the “not going to be in it” and her character may be dead…
Hugh Jackman (James “Logan” Howlett / Wolverine) is conspicuously absent, having come to the MCU in Deadpool & Wolverine and… you know, being Wolverine. Other missing X-Men include Halle Berry (Ororo Munroe / Storm), Famke Janssen (Jean Grey), Anna Paquin (Marie D’Ancanto / Rogue), Elliot Page (Kitty Pryde / Shadowcat), Shawn Ashmore (Bobby Drake / Iceman), and Daniel Cudmore (Piotr Rasputin / Colossus). Then there’s Dafne Keen (Laura Kinney / X-23), and Ryan Reynolds (Wade Wilson / Deadpool).
The Black Panther subfranchise has been one of Marvel’s bright spots, but there’s only two characters from that list confirmed. Assuming most of the action takes place away from Wakanda, it makes sense. Danai Gurira (Okoye) is the most prominent absence here.
I don’t want to drag too many characters into this because the cast list is long enough. So no one who’s only appeared on TV3, no one from Eternals, no one from The Marvels who didn’t headline her own movie, and not going into the Deadpool supporting cast. And unlike Infinity War and Endgame, this one seems likely to stay earthbound, so other Asgardians and the Guardians of the Galaxy (current and former) seem likely to sit out, except maybe Chris Pratt (Peter Quill / Star-Lord) and Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie).