Avengers: Doomsday's Trailers May Be Digitally Swapping Doctor Doom's Costume, and a Leaked ILM Shot Gives It Away

I think the Avengers: Doomsday trailers are lying to us: several shots of Doctor Doom in his angry eyes mask and battle armor are, in my view, digital skins layered over what he actually wears in those scenes. I cannot believe it took me this long to notice, but comparing the latest trailer to leaked ILM work in progress material and to the merchandise finally made it click for me.

Below I will walk through what I believe has been changed, why Marvel would do it for the marketing, and a recent quote from the Russo brothers that speaks directly to how Doom is being created.

Doctor Doom has two costumes and two masks in Avengers: Doomsday

We know that in Avengers: Doomsday, Doom will have two different costumes featuring two different masks. There is his angry eyes battle attire, and there is his diplomat attire with a neutral face mask. We are even getting two separate Hot Toys figures for him. One is called Dr. Doom and has the angry eyes and battle armor. The other is called Victor Von Doom and has his standard attire and a basic mask that does not look menacing.

For the bulk of the film, Victor will be working alongside our heroes as an ally, or so they think. He will come with the Fantastic Four into the mainline MCU, and he is in the scene with the Avengers in Avengers Tower. He will not refer to himself as Dr. Doom. He will call himself Victor, and he will not be wearing a costume and mask that screams villain.

At some point in the film, which we have already glimpsed in the trailer, our heroes discover that Victor has betrayed them and has been playing them. That scene takes place in the Fox X-Men universe. Once the betrayal is discovered, we see Victor use resurrection magic similar to Hela's in Thor: Ragnarok, zombifying dormant Sentinels and setting them loose on our heroes.

The Sentinel shot does not match the leaked ILM version

I have always thought the shot of Doom raising his arms as the Sentinels rise behind him looks great but a little off. Something about it is uncanny. When I covered the leaked ILM material a while back, where the visual effects on this scene were still being worked on, we saw that exact same shot. The hood looks different there than it does in the trailer, which means there has been some digital manipulation.

That is when it clicked for me. "This shot is fake." This mask, this cloak and this armor are not what was captured in camera for this scene.

Rather than some magical wardrobe change we thought happened in midair as he gets thrown out the window, still in the X-Men universe and right before the Sentinel fight and Reed screaming "Victor, did you do this?", look at him when he lands. He is still wearing his diplomatic attire, not his war attire or angry eyes mask. Yet on that same battlefield, seemingly just a few seconds later, Thor and Doom come face to face and he is in the angry eyes mask and battle armor.

Why Doom's battle armor appearing before the third act gives it away

I have said recently that it makes the most sense for him to change into his war attire and angry eyes mask for the third act, when he returns to Latveria and prepares for battle because he knows the Avengers, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men are all coming. But in several trailer shots that would take place before the third act, he is wearing his bad guy attire.

Going all the way back to the first trailer, where Doom stops Stormbreaker, something about these shots has felt off to me. They do not feel like they were captured in camera. They look CGI, and I believe that is because they are. These are digital skins layered over what Doom is actually going to look like in those scenes.

My view is that this is being done solely for the marketing. The posters and the side of all the merchandise show the Dr. Doom mask and costume, so that is the look they want in the trailers. But they do not want to put a lot of third act material, when he is actually wearing that armor, into the trailer. So they take shots where, in the actual movie, he wears his good Doom costume and mask, and they digitally composite the angry eyes mask and war armor over his body strictly for the trailers.

That is why the hood looks different from the leak, and why these shots all look a little off. "Not bad, but just a little off." I feel really vindicated, because I could never quite put my finger on it. I did not want to come across as nitpicky, and I tried to chalk it up to the shots maybe not being finished. In those shots, Doom feels like an added layer rather than part of the scene, and I think that is because he is in the scene in camera, but the marketing team is doing a rough composite of a digital layer over the character.

The Russo brothers say Doom was built with a digital layer

A few days ago, the Russo brothers spoke about Doom, and as I read it, he was something like a practical and digital hybrid in the movie itself, kind of like Iron Man. They said they thought Robert Downey Jr. had a lot of the same fun on this as Josh Brolin did playing Thanos in Infinity War. "He was on set performing everything because of the way we're creating the character with a digital layer." They added that this gives them a second pass at him on a digital level, that there was a lot of experimental performance, and that what he brings to the table is something you could not see coming.

This reminds me of the image from when Doomsday first started filming, showing Downey on set with face tracker dots for motion capture. I think we are now getting an idea of what that was for. We are obviously not going to see Doom's mask contorting, with eye holes opening and closing, or his jaw moving up and down like Ultron's.

What I think they are likely doing is capturing Downey's facial performance, and maybe even filming scenes without the mask, then adding the mask in post. You can do a lot with the eyes, and they would not want to lose that behind a practical mask. I could see them filming a lot of scenes with no mask so they can layer one on later, position it exactly where they want, make small adjustments or move the eyes so we see the performance they intend. I honestly think that is pretty smart, assuming it looks good and does not look like a digital artifact floating on his face, which I do not believe it will.

Marvel's Doomsday trailers have hidden key pieces before

There is another shot I have always thought looked fake. It first surfaced months ago as a leaked still frame, then appeared in the leaked ILM material, and now it is in the official trailer. Every time I have seen it, at each stage, I have thought it looked fake, and I think that is because it is. I think Downey probably shot that scene without a mask and the mask will be added digitally for the movie. For the marketing they are using the angry eyes mask, but in the actual film I think this scene will have the good guy mask.

In typical Marvel fashion, the trailers are giving us the essence of the movie without showing us some key pieces. A while back I pointed out that the first Doomsday trailer removed characters from one shot. You can even see a digital wiggle in the floor, a sign of a quick removal that was not matched perfectly to the camera movement because it was only being done for the trailer. That suggests it was likely done in a marketing department editing bay, not in Marvel Studios' editing bay for the film.

So I do think a lot, maybe even all, of the shots of Doom in these trailers could very well be digitally composited over footage of him in his other costume, with his final act costume and mask placed on top for the marketing. For the bulk of the film, I think he is probably wearing the diplomat suit, and we will not see the battle armor until the end. Those are just my thoughts, though.

Do you think Doom will spend most of Avengers: Doomsday in his diplomat attire, or am I reading too much into a mismatched hood?