Avengers: Doomsday is in production with still no script finalized. So how in the world are they filming months into the movie’s process with no finished roadmap? According to sources, it’s based on the idea of shooting big action sequences required for the film and then filling in narrative gaps in between. Some might say that’s called “knowing the beats without the reasons”.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 23: (L-R) Taika Waititi and Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios attend the Thor: Love and Thunder World Premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in [Hollywood], California on June 23, 2022. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
Principal photography on Avengers: Doomsday began in late April 2025 at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, U.K. (working title: “Apple Pie 1”). Multiple round-ups place day one on April 28, 2025, with location work in England (including Windsor Great Park) and Bahrain through the summer. But work on the movie didn’t mean a script was finished, or that the directors knew what happens in the film. Let’s dive into just how chaotic the creation of Avengers: Doomsday has been and what it means for Marvel!
Even after three months of filming, Marvel boss Kevin Feige acknowledged the screenplay was being refined on set, what he called “plus-ing…every day.” Around the same time, reporting and interviews indicated Michael Waldron (who previously wrote Loki and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) was actively assisting Stephen McFeely on the Doomsday script during production.
Simu Liu says everyone will be “blown away” by Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal of Doctor Doom in ‘AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY’
(Source: https://t.co/Z8MsSHFnG5) pic.twitter.com/LY2VBImROY
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) September 2, 2025
Coverage in July emphasized Waldron’s continuing involvement while cameras rolled, reinforcing that script pages were still in motion rather than fully locked when principal photography began (Feige, for his part, pushed back on the idea Marvel starts without a “full script,” but simultaneously framed live rewrites as a normal part of their process). Consider us major skeptics of anything Kevin Feige says at this point about the process. Frankly, the post-Perlmutter era of Marvel, perhaps best identified as the Feige era (Phases 4-6) has been rocky at best. In fact, the best example of success was developed completely separate from Marvel proper and was greenlit by briefly Disney CEO, Bob Chapek. The other major successes were Sony distributions (see: Spider-Man).
A striking thread across leaks and trade-adjacent coverage is that Marvel moved ahead with major set pieces they were confident would survive rewrites, while character beats and connective tissue kept evolving. Reports point to the production shooting marquee battles first, notably an X-Men vs. Fantastic Four clash, before the full, final script was locked. We’re also hearing rumors that Doctor Doom will fight the Thunderbolts, Spider-Man and Wolverine will team up to face off against some form of the TVA, etc. While Marvel hasn’t confirmed the matchups on the record, multiple outlets and scoop aggregators described at least the Fantastic Four versus Fox X-Men a sequence being staged during the spring/summer shoot. Adding credibility… Alan Cumming seemed to confirm it.
The cast of The Avengers staged a Zoom call in support of Kamala Harris for U.S. President – YouTube, SkyNews Australia
If only Fantastic Four had achieved box office success, there might be more excitement surrounding that battle.
With a cast spanning Avengers, Wakandans, Thunderbolts/New Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and “original” X-Men alumni, Doomsday is a logistics puzzle. In that environment, it’s pragmatic to block, pre-viz, and photograph tent-pole action the studio knows it wants (and that VFX pipelines require months to a year to finish), then “plus” dialogue, transitions, and character-driven scenes around those anchors. That approach mirrors how prior Russo-era team-ups integrated evolving pages with locked-in spectacle—just at a bigger multiversal scale.
The good news? Everyone reportedly is having a great time filming the action sequences even while waiting for the story to still be written!
Simu Liu talks about what it’s been like filming ‘AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY’
“Every day feels like a dream. I get to go to work and work with people I respect and admire. Some of them are actors I watched when I was little, even before I wanted to be an actor. It’s an incredible… pic.twitter.com/TDfGnnrhNX
— Avengers Updates (@AvengersUpdated) September 1, 2025
Ultimately, Avengers: Doomsday sounds like a movie that has particular beats they must complete… but no solidified story for how to get there. It’s a road trip without a vehicle. Marvel just has to hope Robert Downey Jr can drive whatever it is.
They really need to learn from their mistakes and it’s clear they haven’t and outright refuse to. This film will flop by another monumental standard set by their overinflated budget. I’d give them advice but I doubt they’d take it as well as I like to watch as my enemies destroy themselves.
At this point it’s a money pit with zero hope for ROI and I couldn’t be more pleased.
At this point, the film must be so expensive that even a billion wouldn’t be enough to break even.
“According to sources, it’s based on the idea of shooting big action sequences required for the film and then filling in narrative gaps in between.”
That sounds exactly like Gunn’s Superman, which I do not consider a good sign.
This is the ultimate corporate movie-making-by-committee. Even worse, it’s an ego-driven committee. Different factions will be demanding certain scenes, certain changes to the script. The problem with this is, the movie will have no heart. It will just be (bad) CGI set-piece scenes stitched together. This is a far cry from the days of single directors having to total creative control, throughout the movie, usually to a finished script. In addition, making a movie in this tug-of-war way is not only ineffective, it is inefficient, which means, ballooning costs.
No one cares about the “Thunderbolts”, the “Fantastic 4”, etc. It’s so gay and lame, they’re protected by plot armour.
[…] Ryan Reynolds has been rumored to show up in Avengers: Doomsday, the first of two (maybe three) MCU team-up event films, as his signature Marvel character, Deadpool, but the actor is doing his best to temper fan expectations about a Deadpool Doomsday appearance… maybe. These rumors started the second Deadpool entered the MCU in Deadpool and Wolverine, before Doomsday existed in its current form. They were only exacerbated when the film arrived in theaters, and there was a glimpse of a future scene between Deadpool and Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, suggesting that Reynold’s Merc with a Mouth would show up in an Avengers movie somewhere down the line. But that was just speculation; things really heated up last month when Reynolds posted an image of the red A, the symbol for “anarchy,” drawn over the A that is the Avengers symbol, on his Instagram account, with no written message accompanying it. Naturally, fans understood this to be Reynolds teasing his role in Avengers: Doomsday, which is currently filming (and being written). […]