Daniel RPK Claims Avengers Doomsday's First 10 Minutes Will 'Give People Heart Attacks'

A final trailer or new look at Avengers Doomsday was supposed to arrive this morning, coming from multiple sources basically in a consensus, right as Avengers Endgame Encore was hitting theaters. Alas, most of Friday came and went without it. Marvel's official channel posted a clip of Werewolf by Night this morning instead, and just knowing the way YouTube's platform and analytics work, that makes it unlikely we get any Doomsday footage later today. Still, there could be something coming in the next couple of weeks, since we have been hearing reports about that final trailer, and with three months to go to the movie, it is right around the corner.

In the meantime, the Russos gave a ton of interviews today talking about Avengers Endgame Encore but also touching on Doomsday, and there is a lot to work through on that front separately, including what really set off Doomsday at the end of Encore. For now, the focus is on the latest industry insider update about the beginning of Avengers Doomsday, or the first 10 minutes of the film, which takes the plot leaks we have had for over a year to a new level.

Daniel RPK confirms three internal Avengers Doomsday test screenings, no public previews

The update comes from Daniel RPK, who is one of the most trusted sources in the Marvel scoop game, though as always, no scooper gets everything right, so it is worth taking with a grain of salt even with a proven track record. He first confirmed there have been three Avengers Doomsday test screenings, building on updates we already had covering two of them.

Those are internal test screenings only, for top Marvel brass and people involved with the project, with no external test screenings planned. That is a deliberate contrast with Brave New World during the multiverse saga, where external test screenings led to people writing a bunch of negative stuff, and delays ended up making that film take two years to come out. Avengers Doomsday is going to be kept under lock and key, with no external pre-screenings at all.

Reactions from those three internal screenings are reportedly good, but as with our earlier coverage of these screenings, that is coming from a lot of people who worked on it, so it is worth assuming a tinge of bias there.

What the 'heart attacks' line reportedly refers to

RPK went on to say, quote, "The first 10 minutes of Avengers Doomsday are going to give people heart attacks." We have already heard several rumors about the opening of the film, and unless the plot leaks have been completely off base, which they have sort of corroborated each other, the opening is said to take place in Tobey Maguire's universe.

That lines up in an interesting way with Avengers Endgame Encore's post credit scene, since the collapsing of the multiverse seems to be something that cascades, going from one to three to 30 to 300 to 3,000. Given what we already know from plot leaks about the X-Men, it sounds like they have been staving off incursions already. So when the film opens in Tobey Maguire's universe, the leaks say we will see Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool squaring off against Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man in an attempt to basically reality bomb that world out of existence to save their own. Rumors have gone further still, saying Magneto, played by Ian McKellen, will be there facing off against the rogues gallery of that universe's Spider-Man.

Why that opening is hard to square with Endgame Encore's post credit scene

I am not sure how this is meant to mesh with the Encore post credit scene, which basically showed an immediate cascading collapse of the multiverse. It would not seem like the X-Men had multiple incursions to stave off already, or that they had been doing it for a while, the way the plot leaks describe. Still, assuming time may work a little differently watching it on the TVA monitor, since that is outside the normal timeline, it is possible the X-Men do get a chance to try to save their universes, and that is what plays out in the opening of Avengers Doomsday.

Saying it is a full 10 minutes that will give people heart attacks suggests this could be a rather in depth, full on action sequence rather than something quick at the start of the film. If we are finally getting Wolverine versus Spider-Man in live action, it makes sense Marvel would put a lot of attention toward it. I think the heart attack line may also be keying in on reports that Wolverine does not make it out alive, that Deadpool is able to make it back, but Wolverine is not, with him and Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man presumably getting erased when the TVA style bomb Deadpool sets off actually goes off. That is meant to make the audience think they are gone forever, but based on what we know about Avengers Secret Wars, they will probably be back.

Deadpool and Wolverine's D23 and Comic-Con appearances were the real cast announcement

There has also been general conversation around Deadpool and Wolverine's involvement in the recent marketing at D23 and SDCC, framed as them basically asking to be in Avengers Doomsday. If you did not read between the lines there, that was the official cast announcement for those two characters. They would not have been part of the promo if they were not in the film. Marvel just thought it would be funnier to keep it an in joke about Deadpool not being part of the MCU and constantly asking to get in.

There is quite a bit we can infer from this, because we know Deadpool and Wolverine will not be around for a majority of the film. We have already seen several trailers, and we know who the main players are, none of whom include Deadpool, Wolverine or Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man. So if they are in Doomsday, which this promo now confirms, it has to be in some other capacity, like the opening segment we have been hearing about, disconnected from the main story but setting up what is coming, explaining incursions and what has been going on with the X-Men, and showing Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man against Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, something the Spider-Man and X-Men films were never able to line up when they were running simultaneously, despite aspirations to do so back then.

Would Marvel actually show this opening scene publicly?

On the question of internal versus external screenings, Deadpool and Wolverine once screened the first 12 minutes, or 8 minutes, of that film before release, and Marvel Studios has done things like that in the past. I attended one of those screenings myself for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, watching the first 10 or 15 minutes before the red carpet premiere and then giving a reaction or review without revealing any details, which was extremely hard to do.

So there is precedent for Marvel doing this during the multiverse saga, and I was wondering if the first 10 minutes of Doomsday being their own thing in a vacuum meant Marvel Studios might use that to promote the film. I do not think they will. Both the Deadpool and Wolverine opening and the Multiverse of Madness sequence were tightly connected to the rest of those movies, but if the Doomsday opening really is Wolverine and Deadpool attacking Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man universe with a different cast of characters than the main film, that is too disconnected from what is really going on in Doomsday for Marvel to show it in isolation.

Because this is Avengers Doomsday, I doubt Marvel will show anything like that publicly at all. There are still some comic cons between now and the end of the year where they could show something, and they have in the past gathered closed media to see footage and write about it with no one else present, but for Doomsday and Avengers Secret Wars, I would bet they keep everything a secret for as long as possible.

What are you expecting from the first 10 minutes of Avengers Doomsday, and did the Doomsday bridge footage in Avengers Endgame Encore live up to it for you?