Avengers: Doomsday Marketing May Finally Hide the Third Act, Insider Suggests

For most of the Multiverse Saga I have had a pretty nuanced take on Marvel Studios and their marketing. Sometimes they reveal way too little too early, and sometimes it is way too much right before a film comes out. Now, as we head into the final stretch of Avengers: Doomsday marketing over the next three months, when it is expected to hit its highest point, a new update from an industry insider about what has not been shown from the third act suggests Marvel Studios might actually be doing it right this time.

I know at least a couple of other YouTubers bigger than me in this corner of the internet made a similar point about Spider-Man: Brand New Day. It was pretty obvious Sony should have just confirmed which X-Men character was showing up in the film and gotten extra marketing value out of it. Instead they held back.

Looking in the rearview mirror, though, maybe Sony and Marvel did it exactly right. Brand New Day was following up Spider-Man: No Way Home, which should have been an impossible act to follow, and it exceeded all expectations. By every mark, both fandom and box office, it was an absolute smash. So maybe holding things back really did work.

Daniel RPK says the trailers still have not shown us Latveria's final battle

The latest update comes from industry insider Daniel RPK, who you can follow on Twitter under that same handle. Here is what he said about the marketing right now: "Even Infinity War and Avengers Endgame trailers showed scenes from the final battle, but not Doomsday. They haven't shown us anything from Latveria."

I am only half joking when I say they actually have shown us Latveria. We have seen Doom's castle there, and we saw it again in the post-credits scene for Avengers Endgame Encore, when Doctor Doom is presumably in one of his armory rooms making his armor. But that is not what Daniel RPK means.

What he is referring to is what recent plot leaks have described about the third act specifically, the final battle at Latveria itself. He is not saying Marvel has hidden Latveria as a location entirely, just that final confrontation.

The leaked third act: Doom's defeat, the march on Latveria, and a possible Hulk cameo

Spoiler warning here. According to the plot leaks, once Doom is revealed to be the ultimate villain, which we already saw teased in one of the trailers, the heroes figure out that Victor is the cause of the impending collapse of the multiverse. Reed Richards calls him out on it, and Doom retreats back to Latveria.

From there, whatever heroes are left from across the multiverse are said to band together from these different universes and march on Latveria, fighting against an army of Doombots along with Doom and perhaps some of his followers.

I am thinking that is where they may have added a Hulk cameo, but I want to be clear that is purely speculation on my part. I would love to see our heroes end up fighting against the Hulk on Doctor Doom's side in the third act, alongside a bunch of infinite Doctor Dooms as Doombots. I think that would make for an insane finish.

A leaked protocol tied to Stark's legacy could bring in unannounced heroes like Star-Lord or Rocket

Part of the same plot leak mentioned a protocol tied to Stark's legacy, and it apparently ties into how the Vision series wraps up. Vision was said to make his way over to Stark's Tower, or what is left of it, the new Avengers Tower, and set the protocol off.

That protocol would basically call all the heroes across the 616 universe and tell them this is the end, come help defend and fight if you can.

That is where we would supposedly see an influx of heroes who have not been part of the film and have not been announced yet, say a Star-Lord or a Rocket from the Guardians of the Galaxy. They would band together and march on Latveria, which, you have to be honest, sounds absolutely insane.

Why Infinity War and Endgame got away with showing the final battle, but Doomsday might not

Daniel RPK is right about one thing: in one of the very earliest Infinity War trailers, as well as in Avengers Endgame marketing, Marvel was willing to show us scenes and frames from the actual final battle. That is a real precedent.

Yes, I know the Infinity War frame that changed did not have the Hulk in it in the finished film, and you can argue that was misleading marketing. I think it is because the script was clearly still in flux. And we know, again looking back, that is how they have always done these films. They are writing them as they are making them.

I think that has its inherent problems when you are making art of this size, but if you are not going to trust the Russos and Marvel Studios to get it done, who else in the world could step up to the plate with their resume and say they have already done it. As we get deeper into Doomsday marketing, I am curious whether Marvel will hold all the footage and frames from that third act back so we have not seen any of it, especially if that leaked protocol cameo fest is real.

The Marvels and Multiverse of Madness spoiled their own endings with last minute TV spots

The two films I always point to are The Marvels and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. As we approached the last week before those movies dropped in theaters, all of a sudden we got TV spots with major spoilers and reveals, things they had chosen to hide the entire time throughout marketing, like members of the Illuminati or the X-Men character in The Marvels, which was really just a post-credits scene they shamelessly put into a trailer about 48 hours before release.

We also know the box office for The Marvels was not tracking anywhere near what they would have wanted, and Multiverse of Madness did not track the kind of numbers Marvel had hoped for either. As a quick side note, Multiverse of Madness did actually get close to a billion dollars, with a lifetime global box office of 955,775,000 dollars, so it got about as close as you can without actually calling it a billion.

Whatever I have to say about their marketing scheme, maybe those last minute TV spots did move tickets. I would just argue that if you are going to see the movie, you are going to see the movie. If you bought tickets during presale, you are a diehard fan already. There are less hardcore Marvel fans who will not even think about getting tickets until it is a week or two out.

The hype for Doomsday is palpable, even after a disappointing Endgame Encore tease

Some of my earliest videos on this made the point that Marvel Studios may be able to do no wrong with Avengers Doomsday, especially coming off Brand New Day. The hype right now is absolutely palpable.

Honestly, I felt like the Avengers Endgame Encore footage was kind of a dud. There was no way it was going to live up to whatever we had hoped for, and it felt like a letdown that did not rock any of the hype.

But there has been barely any hate over it either, no one really seems to care, and everyone is still very hyped for this film. Given a lot of the official updates from the Russos themselves in the last day or so around the Endgame Encore release, it is only reason to be more excited.

I personally do not think Marvel will be able to make it all the way to Doomsday without giving us some kind of sneak peek at the third act. For pretty much all of their films, in chronological order, that is what they have done. They are supposedly meant to mix it up, but they never do. Would you rather they hide the entire third act from every frame before you get to the theater, or would you rather get a couple of clips here and there so you know what is going on?