Avengers: Doomsday will visit Earth 828, says Kevin Feige

Marvel Studios ran a major press push timed to The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and the Avengers: Doomsday details that came out of it were revealing enough that I'd throw every plot leak I've covered right out the window. Based on what Marvel Studios officially shared, it seems like none of them had it right.

Marvel always does this. It's not enough that you're getting the new Marvel movie. The studio wants to drive home how important this movie is in the grand context of things. Because Avengers: Doomsday was the next thing up, the new details about it stood out. I saw three major takeaways, and the last one was the bombshell: a new location for Doomsday, revealed by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige himself.

Kevin Feige admits the Avengers: Doomsday script is not finished

The first takeaway is that Kevin Feige admitted and confirmed what industry insiders had been saying for months: the script was not finished. I don't like the way he described it. He called it plusing, which is when the studio goes in with a good script and makes it great during production.

We've seen Marvel Studios fall down with this exact process before. I call it movie by committee, otherwise known as too many cooks in the kitchen. Adding more people while you're on a timeline to finish principal photography doesn't always produce a better script. In some cases, like Multiverse of Madness and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, it's clear the opposite happened.

Feige still stood by the process. He called it one of the great things about Marvel Studios and how it works. The studio wants the opinions of the actors and all the creatives, and if someone has a better idea, it uses it. He described it as collaborative and claimed it would make Avengers: Doomsday better.

Many industry insiders tried to make it sound like drama, saying there was no third act and no ending yet. In my view it was really Marvel Studios following its normal approach, the way it believes it makes great movies. To compensate, the studio moved the film nine months, to the end of 2026 instead of May.

Michael Waldron joins Avengers: Doomsday as a writer

That leads into the second takeaway. Feige confirmed Marvel had added Michael Waldron as one of the writers to try to finish the Avengers: Doomsday script. Waldron wrote Multiverse of Madness and Loki season 1. He was tapped to write Avengers: Secret Wars, and he replaced Jeff Loveness on Avengers 5 after the Kang Dynasty title was removed.

This is exactly what Marvel did on Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Go back to interviews from that time and you'll hear that the studio was circulating the scripts to the top executive producers and writers from the films that led into them. The goal was the kind of consensus by committee Feige was describing as a collaborative process.

I think adding Waldron is good news. He wrote some of the most important multiverse stories in the franchise, across both TV and film. He's the guy to have on the project, because you want that level of attention to detail and continuity. Who better to consult than the person who created most of that lore in the first place?

My expectation was that by the time Marvel was on the press tour for Avengers: Secret Wars, looking back at the production of both films, we'd be surprised at how many top creatives had a hand in it. That would probably include directors like Ryan Coogler. I wouldn't be surprised if Destin Daniel Cretton and Jake Schreier had input too, for the corners of the universe they helped craft.

Feige confirms the 616 Avengers travel to Earth 828

Speaking of corners of the universe, this was the bombshell. After the press conference, Feige confirmed that some semblance of our Avengers from the 616 will travel to the Fantastic Four's original timeline, the 828, during Avengers: Doomsday.

As he put it, it's interesting to see the characters in each other's homes.

Why the Avengers: Doomsday plot leaks missed it

None of the plot leaks we'd had mentioned this at all. Some of the recent ones were very obviously generated by ChatGPT, which is why I hadn't been covering them. That's strike one against those leaks. In my view they looked at the leaked set videos and set photos and tried to craft a story on top of them. All of them can be debunked, because they didn't have this detail.

There was one exception, and I like to give credit where it's due. Many casual readers are skeptical about how reliable industry insider information is. Shortly before Feige's comments, I reported on an industry insider's claim that scenes were being filmed on a baseball field in the 828. He was the very first insider to point to filming there.

At the time, I said I thought those baseball field scenes were maybe set in the past, as setup for Doctor Doom. Now that we're hearing the 616 Avengers are going to the 828 and the Baxter Building, I think it's really likely we're going to get some modern day 828 as well. That might also help build out Doctor Doom.

Doctor Doom, Franklin Richards and The Fantastic Four post credits scenes

I'm wondering whether Doctor Doom will be in the 828, with the Fantastic Four needing to come and get some of the Avengers to help. Why the Fantastic Four are headed specifically to the 616 is still unclear. From the leaked post credits scene, it seems likely Doom will have kidnapped Franklin Richards by the end of the film. How and why the Fantastic Four would know to contact our 616 Avengers is unclear.

We know they're coming, because we saw it at the end of Thunderbolts. We just don't know why. I think the details not yet revealed about the secret second post credits scene, which the Russos have now been confirmed to have directed for The Fantastic Four, is where the major setup will come in. I expected we'd get some really awesome details there.

The reviews and reactions to The Fantastic Four had been amazing, and I was hyped to see Galactus. It felt like it was all coming together. That excitement I remember from Infinity War and Endgame? I could feel it again.