Avengers Doomsday Test Screening Reaction Says the Film Is Like Six Movies Having a Baby

Avengers Doomsday reshoots, pickup shots, extended principal photography, whatever you want to call it, have finally wrapped, and that is confirmed by multiple sources. That means the Russo brothers now face the job of sending Doomsday into final post production while also trying to start filming Avengers: Secret Wars.

Doomsday moves into post production as internal test screenings begin

Part of that post production process is the internal test screenings we have been hearing about from Marvel movies for the better part of the last half decade. External screenings are sometimes the real reveal for how audiences feel about a film, but for something as big as Avengers Doomsday, I am not expecting any external test screenings. The level of secrecy and the box office damage that leaks can do is much different than a film like Captain America: Brave New World, which had multiple external test screenings.

So with that in mind, this latest update is coming from someone internally at Marvel or Disney, relayed through an anonymous Twitter scoopster. As always, take it with a grain of salt, since no scooper gets everything right. This particular source has nailed a couple of scoops recently and has been around for a while, so take that for what it is worth.

The scoop describes Doomsday as six films having a baby

The update reads: someone who went to a recent test screening of Avengers Doomsday loved the movie and described it as, quote, "If Fant4stic, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Law Abiding Citizen, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Kingdom Hearts, and The Godfather had a baby, it would be this."

That list is a little disorienting. These films come from very different eras and very different styles, different directing, different writing, different cinematography, different ways of telling a story and editing. Some of them have nothing in common with each other other than being movies, and some of the titles here are not what I would consider top tier cinema, quite the opposite. Hearing them compared to Avengers Doomsday made me a little concerned.

Despite that, the source says they absolutely loved the movie, and every pre-screener reaction we have heard so far, though limited, has said this movie is bananas and outstanding. Since principal photography is now finished, you have to imagine whatever they added has only made it better.

Fant4stic and The Phantom Menace point to Doom's fall into villainy

Going down the list, the comparisons start to make more sense as plot references rather than style comparisons. Fant4stic, the 2015 Fantastic Four movie, is my least favorite Fantastic Four film, but it did feature the Fantastic Four versus Dr. Doom, even if that version of Doom was an absolute trash version. I hope whatever this reference is about does not go past the simple fact that we have got Doom versus the Fantastic Four and presumably everybody else in the MCU.

The Phantom Menace comparison had me scratching my head at first, but Anakin goes through a series of tragedies that take what could have been potential for greatness and turn it into tragedy, molding him into the ultimate villain. There is no official record confirming it, but fans have long pointed out similarities between that arc and Doom, given how a disfigured, horribly damaged character ends up wearing full body armor and a cape. I think the comparison being drawn is about that potential-for-greatness-turned-tragedy plot point rather than anything about the actual filmmaking.

Law Abiding Citizen, Days of Future Past and Kingdom Hearts hint at revenge, time travel and a magical weapon

Law Abiding Citizen is a revenge for the family type of film. X-Men: Days of Future Past involves characters time traveling to try to save the world. Kingdom Hearts is a video game I have played a bit, and I know the storyline well enough, with Sora wielding a magical weapon to protect the universe from darkness. The obvious draw there is to a character like Thor and his own magical weapon protecting the multiverse.

The Godfather reference is really about Robert Downey Jr.'s transformation

The Godfather is the one where I scratched my head the hardest and thought, what could The Godfather possibly have to do with Avengers Doomsday. Then it dawned on me: Marlon Brando's transformation, the voice, the whole making of that performance, is what Robert Downey Jr. is doing here, transforming himself not just from the Tony Stark and Iron Man character he has already played, but taking on the ultimate villain role, putting on a voice, doing an entire act as another character that is completely outside his wheelhouse and something new for him.

You can talk for hours about Marlon Brando's eccentricities and the skepticism around his behavior late in his career, but aside from all of that, he is regarded by a lot of people as one of the best actors of all time and someone who changed the entire industry with the way he performed, a major influence credited by many. At that rate, you can see the comparison to Robert Downey Jr., another influential actor and a benchmark for quality cinema and acting, now taking on a brand new role that pushes his own limits later in an already outstanding career.

So there are elements of each of these movies that likely drew this comparison, and the source who saw the pre-screener and loved it was saying this is what it reminded them of in these respects. It makes it easier to swallow if I am reading this correctly, because I do not want to hear that Dr. Doom or anything to do with Doomsday actually resembles Fant4stic in quality, and I am sure a lot of people feel the same way.