Disappointed fans say new Avengers movie is ‘dead on arrival’ as returning Marvel characters confirmed

Marvel have announced that Avengers: Doomsday is in production and will feature a whopping amount of past characters from their various movies and TV shows.

We already knew that Robert Downey Jr was making a return for both Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, though he made his name in the MCU (and arguably made the MCU) by playing a different character.

While Kang the Conqueror had been slated as the next big villain for Marvel, off-screen issues revolving around Jonathan Majors seem to have sunk those plans as he was last year found guilty of assaulting his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari.

Instead, Downey Jr is making a comeback after Tony Stark died in Avengers: Endgame, this time as the villainous Doctor Doom.

The full list of announced actors for Avengers: Doomsday is:

• Chris Hemsworth as Thor
• Vanessa Kirby as Invisible Woman
• Anthony Mackie as Captain America
• Sebastian Stan as The Winter Soldier
• Letitia Wright as Black Panther
• Paul Rudd as Ant Man
• Wyatt Russell as US Agent
• Tenoch Huerta Mejia as Namor
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach as The Thing
• Simu Liu as Shang-Chi
• Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova
• Kelsey Grammer as Beast
• Lewis Pullman as Sentry
• Danny Ramirez as The Falcon
• Joseph Quinn as The Human Torch
• David Harbour as Red Guardian
• Winston Duke as M'Baku
• Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost
• Tom Hiddleston as Loki
• Sir Patrick Stewart as Professor X
• Sir Ian McKellen as Magneto
• Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler
• Rebecca Romijn as Mystique
• James Marsden as Cyclops
• Channing Tatum as Gambit
• Pedro Pascal as Mr Fantastic
• Robert Downey Jr as Doctor Doom

So that means Thor is the only original Avenger confirmed to be back for Doomsday, while the Fantastic Four, X-Men (including Channing Tatum from Deadpool and Wolverine), and the cast of Thunderbolts (a movie yet to be released) are set to be brought into the mix for the MCU flagship.

There might be some more big names to come as the MCU has plenty of other characters to draw from and there are some heavy hitters still around who haven't been announced.

While Avengers: Doomsday is likely to be an absolute box office juggernaut, and the MCU could do with one of those since Captain America: Brave New World was perhaps not a roaring success, some Marvel fans are worried that the new movie will be 'dead on arrival'.

Those were the words of one fan reacting to the news that Tom Holland's Spider-Man and Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange are nowhere to be seen in the casting announcement.

There's a LOT of major Marvel characters in this one (Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney)

Someone else lamented that they weren't 'moved in the slightest' and took it as a sign that they 'really have lost interest in Marvel movies'.

Another fan predicted that Doomsday was 'going to bomb' despite boasting a 'crazy cast', and a fourth said 'there's like four actual avengers man'.

However, there were other fans who seemed much more excited for the next big tentpole in the MCU, particularly as it contained 'the og X-Men casting'.

Others expressed excitement about the prospect of a reunion between Thor and Loki, who haven't interacted with each other since the opening to Infinity War when Loki was killed.

He made a comeback via an alternative version of himself for his TV series, Loki, and fans have wanted to see their older and wiser selves reunite ever since.

Avengers: Doomsday is currently pencilled in to be released on 1 May, 2026.