Over the course of four weeks, Marvel Studios released four trailers for December’s Avengers: Doomsday. The first focused on the surprise return of Chris Evans as Steve Rogers. The second was all about Thor (Chris Hemsworth). Trailer three? The X-Men, baby. And trailer four introduced the first live-action on-screen meeting between the Wakandans and the Fantastic Four. Except, here’s the thing… According to directors Joe and Anthony Russo, aka the Russo Brothers, these aren’t trailers. They’re “stories.” Or perhaps “clues.” Or more recently, they’ve called them “narrative information” and argued that “Doomsday has already begun.”
And I’m just going to ask them once, nicely: can you guys be normal about your dumb movie, please?
I say this not as a hater, but as a once, current, and hopefully future Marvel fan… I generally like this stuff, and will continue to like this stuff. And even with the bumps and knocks some of the more recent output from Marvel Studios has gotten since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, I’m always rooting for the movies and TV shows to be good. This might sound a little nuts, but I generally like watching things I like more than watching things I don’t like. I know, crazy!
But the four teasers have left me a little cold… I look at them more as reminders that these characters are going to be in the movie — unless it’s not a “movie” but instead an “experience” or something, please check with the Russos on that. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be hyped to see them in context if there’s a compelling story with some excitingly staged action, peppered with moments of heart and humor. You know, a movie that I watch in theaters that may or may not be nearly four hours long (TBD).
However, coupled with these dour, extremely serious trailers, the way the Russos are talking about the movie is really off-putting. It’s perhaps not fair to judge something on the external conversation… Ultimately, it’s about what’s on screen, not what happens off-screen. But in the absence of any other real info about the film, all we have to go on is the intentions of the directors. And those intentions are really pretentious, particularly given you have like 60 actors in spandex shooting pew pews out of their hands and punching each other.
I know I detailed this above, but along with the Wakanda/Fantastic Four teaser, the Russos posted on Instagram that, “What you’ve been watching for the last four weeks… are not teasers. Or trailers. They are stories. They are clues… Pay attention.” along with the hashtag “DoomsdayHasBegun.” That did drive the MCU faithful a little nuts as they tried to parse secret codes at the end of these trailers — sorry, stories — with no real closure on that front… Usually in the modern age of the internet if there’s some sort of real world treasure hunt component to an ad campaign, there’s a payoff at the end of that. Here, there has been no payoff, or clarity about what the clues mean; or if the clues people are looking at are clues at all.
The latest bit comes from an upcoming issue of Empire Magazine (via IGN), where the Russos attempt to clarify that Instagram post by stating, “Each one of these trailers is narrative information, and it’s all part of larger story. So I would argue that Doomsday has already started for you.”
Maybe it’s started for the interviewer (I can’t speak for them), but unless there’s something I’m not aware of, I’m currently at home and typing on my laptop, and not in a movie theater watching Avengers: Doomsday. I have seen four trailers, and maybe (probably) there are more to come. But I would attest that Doomsday has not started, despite what the Russos are saying.
Listen, I get they need to hype up this movie. There’s a ton of pressure for it to be one of, if not the biggest movie of all time. But so far, nothing I’ve seen indicates to me that it’s fun. And the way the Russos talk about it make it seem like the opposite of fun, aka work. I realize the characters will be dealing with world-ending stakes, but we also have Robert Downey Jr. playing Doctor Doom, which is an inherently silly idea. We don’t need to go back to the early days of superhero movies where they apologized for the costumes and changed the powers. But can the Russos just be normal about this movie, please?
Like, I realize it’s a lot of work, and they’re managing hundreds if not thousands of people in the cast and crew… It’s more akin to running a small country instead of filming a movie. But as I am not currently working on the set of Avengers: Doomsday, I have zero sense of whether getting to direct the classic X-Men actors was fun, or if it was interesting to work on different directors’ sets, or whether it was neat having most of the original Avengers cast back together. What I am getting from the Russos is that I really better put my nose to the grindstone and figure out what the f**k their movie trailers really are, because otherwise my kids might die.
That doesn’t make me want to book a ticket for the cinema, it makes me want to hide out in a cabin until this whole this whole “movie” thing blows over. What are my Senators doing about Avengers: Doomsday? Can anyone stop this from happening???
Anyway. Point here being that there’s a little less than a year until the movie hits theaters, unless it blinks and moves away from Dune 3‘s premiere date (that movie snagged the IMAX screens, meaning it’s a little more likely Doomsday might blink). But whatever happens there, sure, the Russos need to be keeping that promo train rolling all year long. As they do, though, I humbly ask they start treating it as what it is: a fun, big superhero movie; and not the actual end of the world.
Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters on December 18, 2026. Unless, of course, Doomsday has already started.
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