Marvel Entertainment ran an incredibly slow-moving live video premier on X in order to promote The Avengers Doomsday cast. It did not go well.
The MCU is in a strange place. Nearly every one of its Disney+ live shows have been ratings disasters. The same has become true for its box office results unless the film features Wolverine or Spider-Man. Now the studio needs redemption fast before it becomes on par (or worse) than Star Wars in terms of cultural irrelevancy.
Tom Holland as Spider-Man in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Marvel Studios
Captain America: Brave New World just flopped in theaters massively. The latest Daredevil is a streaming slump-machine. With Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four: First Steps looking shaky-at-best, the hope was the next Avengers movie could save the day. Instead, the reveal of basically every celebrity appearing in the movie has had the opposite effect.
Lame appears to be the game that Marvel is playing.
Take a seat. https://t.co/rvhBoEMy2n
— Marvel Studios (@MarvelStudios) March 26, 2025
“Take a seat,” Marvel posted on the video. It was more like “take a snooze.”
Vanessa Kirby, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Tenoch Huerta Mejia, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Simu Liu, Florence Pugh… these were some of the names that painstakingly crawled across the multi-hour video.
Thunderbolts concept art by Andy Park via Kristian Harloff YouTube
If this was supposed to excite Marvel fans, it must have been opposite day at Disney. Sure, there were a few notables listed like Chris Hemsworth, Patrick Stewart, Tom Hiddleston, and Kelsey Grammar, but most of the names were double-downs on shows and movie that have been utterly rejected by fans. Fears that Marvel would stuff this ungolden goose with Young Avengers, Shang-Chi, Black Widow hand-me-downs, Eternals, and other unpopular properties were seemingly confirmed.
It’s as if failing wasn’t enough the first time for Kevin Feige and these Z-Tier roster choices… instead we’re getting a $500M production budget bonanza or characters nobody knows.
Thunderbolts* and Top Gun Maverick actor Lewis Pullman pic.twitter.com/v9B5G3bDUX
— Jonas J. Campbell (@JonasJCampbell) March 26, 2025
Captain America Brave New World and Falcon and the Winter Soldier actor Danny Ramirez pic.twitter.com/wjQ3FoCeEj
— Jonas J. Campbell (@JonasJCampbell) March 26, 2025
At this point, with just how badly-received Marvel has been for the past five years, it’s time for the studio to return to its S-Tier roster of characters… FOCUS on them… and make the best possible movie they can with those characters.
Spider-Man and Wolverine together. Bring in the X-Men. Rogue and Storm, Cyclops and Jean Grey. Get Rocket and Starlord back on the silver screen together. But this craziness of stuffing a new Captain America and Thunderbolts characters together for an Avengers movie? Oi vey. This could be the film that makes Snow White look like a winner.
(L-R): Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool/Wade Wilson and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine/Logan in 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios’ DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE. Photo by Jay Maidment. © 2024 20th Century Studios / © and ™ 2024 MARVEL.
The one caveat:
If these characters get five minute cameos while the properties that sell are starring on the screen, I’ll take back the prognosis. But for now, this is a patient in need of surgery. The surgery is amputation of the last three “phases” of Marvel.
What’s your take on the Avengers Doomsday cast announcements? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
