All The Announcements From Marvel's Hall H Panel: Robert Downey Jr. Re-Joins The MCU As Doctor Doom In Avengers: Doomsday

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This post will be continually updated with anything new announced at Marvel Studios' Hall H Panel at San Diego Comic-Con. The event begins at 6 PM PST, 9 PM EST. I will try to include commentary as I see stories break so there may be a slight delay as things come.

We are locked in here for any new information that may come out. While we may not be physically in attendance, we are monitoring online and, once information has been vetted, we will post it here. So far we are seeing (according to GamesRadar) that Simon Kinberg is in attendance, something I'm not super enthusiastic about considering his recent outings (both with the X-Men and outside the franchise) have not been stellar. Granted, there were a lot of issues with Dark Phoenix that go beyond him but still, I hope he's not a long term X-Men solution for the MCU.

Update #1: I Was Totally Wrong/Captain America: Brave New World

Well after spending hours trying to speculate about what was going to happen, it appears I was totally wrong. Feige has taken the stage and said that they were only going to focus on three movies, the first of which is Captain America: Brave New World, slated for release on February 14th, 2025. Feige said that the movie goes back to the grounded action of The Winter Soldier, bearing in mind there's a Hulk in the trailer. Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Giancarlo Esposito, and Tim Blake Nelson are on stage with Feige.

Update #2: Giancarlo Esposito's Role In Captain America: Brave New World Revealed

Turns out I was wrong in my theory he was playing Bolivar Trask, he is actually playing Sidewinder, the king of the Serpent Society. Fans may remember that Captain America: Serpent Society was originally supposed to be the title of the third Chris Evans movie which ended up being Civil War. Hopefully this does not mean he's going to be a one-off villain and we end up with him as a head of Hydra going forward for a while.

Update #3: Footage Shown From Captain America: Brave New World

The footage shows Thunderbolt Ross talking about the corpse of Tiamut that's sticking out of the ocean (so everyone can shut up about that now) and shows him turning into the Red Hulk in front of the White House. The footage also confirms that Tiamut is the source of Adamantium in the MCU so that's cool.

Update #4: On To Thunderbolts*

The cast of the film is present along with director Jake Schrier. The general consensus from the cast is that the movie is good and they had fun making it which like, would you expect anything different from the cast at this point? Like it's a Marvel Studios panel, what are they gonna say? It sucked?

According to several cast members, Florence Pugh is the best part of the movie which isn't shocking considering she's fantastic in most things she appears in and absolutely stole the show in Hawkeye.

Update #5: Thunderbolts* Trailer

The teaser does not show enough but Yelena visits Red Guardian (Black Widow reunion). Apparently they are sent on a mission and encounter the rest of the Thunderbolts and figure out someone is sending them on dangerous missions and they want to figure out who they are. GeeksofColor indicates that it appears that Val is sending the team to kill each other which is what unites them.

Update #6: On To Fantastic Four

The film has been retitled The Fantastic Four: First Steps and they reconfirmed the July release date (so I'm just doing awful all around on predictions). This title is interesting since it echos the first post-credit scene from Iron Man when Nick Fury tells Tony Stark he's just taken his first steps into a larger universe. Filming begins shooting on Tuesday so, you know, we'll see if that date sticks. One year for production feels tight for Marvel Studios.

Update #7: The Fantastic Four: First Steps Footage

Despite the fact that production starts Tuesday, they showed footage of Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards. The aesthetic is notably retro-futuristic, set in the 1960s, and shot in 4:3. I don't know if the movie as a whole will be 4:3 but it could be interesting if they commit to the aesthetic. The footage is specifically not from the movie and shows the team prepping for a space mission and teases Galactus.

Update #8: ALL The Casts Of These Three Movies Will Appear In The Next Avengers Movies To Be Directed By The Russo Brothers

Headline is pretty self explanatory here. The Russo Brothers (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame) are returning to direct the next two Avengers movies. Does kind of take the stakes away from Thunderbolts* because it's unlikely that anyone dies if they're in the next Avengers movie. Notably I don't see a reference to Avengers 5 being called The Kang Dynasty. Look, lets be real, visually the movies look great but I am waiting to hear if Markus and McFeely are back because the writing of all four of those movies (and Captain America: The First Avenger) is top-notch and really makes those movies work.

Update #9: Jesus I Can't Catch A Break Can I?

Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is no longer the title for the fifth movie (and part one of Secret Wars), it is called Avengers: Doomsday with Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom. The choice makes sense since Doom has a prominent role in the 2015 Secret Wars comic which this appears to be taking inspiration from. Unfortunately it is not Avengers Vs X-Men but whatever, I'm fine with being wrong here. This also probably means Armor Wars will not be an adaptation of Superior Iron Man because that would be too similar to this.

Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters on May 1st, 2026

Avengers: Secret Wars hits theaters on May 7th, 2027

So just to wrap up with the panel at an end, there will be a Thirty Minute Reviews episode basically entirely about this tomorrow where I'll get further into my thoughts (and an accompanying article) but basically this panel told us in no uncertain terms that the Disney+ experiment for Marvel Studios was a failure, as was the idea to have Kang the Conqueror as the overarching Multiverse Saga villain. I don't think Kang the Conqueror and Jonathan Majors were so specifically intertwined that they had to be ditched because of Majors' off-set behavior so the decision to ditch Kang Dynasty entirely reeks of a decision based on Quantumania bombing and the adjacent Disney+ shows not finding a wide enough audience. Why ditch two phases of set up to be like "Oh the bad guy is going to be Doom and we are introducing him in Avengers: Doomsday" if things were going well but you just needed to recast? Maybe my predictions were totally wrong, maybe I made an ass of myself, but I was right about one thing:

The Multiverse Saga is really The Studio Interference Saga because the two major decisions disavowed today seem to have come from Disney corporate and this feels like the glass has been broken in case of emergency.