{"id":194578,"date":"2025-12-21T07:13:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T07:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/194578\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T07:13:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T07:13:13","slug":"doomsday-is-lazy-and-desperate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/194578\/","title":{"rendered":"Doomsday\u2019 is lazy and desperate"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a move of bewildering grandiosity, Disney is debuting four teaser trailers for next year\u2019s Marvel rinse-and-repeat, \u201cAvengers: Doomsday,\u201d before \u201cAvatar: Fire and Ash<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the sort of intricate, collect-\u2018em-all marketing splash Taylor Swift might make, except nobody cares about the Tortured Heroes Department anymore.<\/p>\n

Social media has been shrugging since Thursday.<\/p>\n

The first promo that dropped this weekend stuck out though. It prominently featured former Captain America actor Chris Evans, who had claimed as recently as January that he was \u201chappily retired\u201d<\/a> from the red-white-and-blue role (whose civilian name is Steve Rogers) after 2019\u2019s \u201cAvengers: Endgame<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Chris<\/p>\n

Chris Evans is back in \u201cAvengers: Doomsday\u201d as Steve Rogers. Jay Maidment<\/p>\n

Making that personnel shift official-ish, Anthony Mackie, previously his sidekick Falcon, donned the main cape in February\u2019s floperoo \u201cCaptain America: Brave New World.\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Womp womp. That dud made $415 million worldwide \u2014 a pitiful haul for the jewel in Disney\u2019s crown that was quite recently considered the unassailable future of movies.<\/p>\n

Said Diz: \u201cOld world, please!\u201d<\/p>\n

The clip for next Christmas\u2019 Hail Mary Pass ends with the message \u201cSteve Rogers will return in \u2018Avengers: Doomsday\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to say when Evans was re-enlisted, since Marvel movies are typically shot with incomplete scripts and cram in green-screen cameos right till the bitter end. Principal photography wrapped in September and reshoots reportedly start in January. There will surely be plenty more last-second A-list additions to come.<\/p>\n

But no$talgia for a brighter \u2014 and greener \u2014 past is definitely the name of the endgame.<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/p>\n

Robert Downey Jr. is also returning for the new \u201cAvengers\u201d film, but in a new villainous role. Zade Rosenthal<\/p>\n

Born-again Chris joins fellow \u201cwe thought you left\u201d colleague Robert Downey Jr., whose character Tony Stark \u2014 a k a Iron Man \u2014 um, died in \u201cEndgame.\u201d There was a big, sad funeral scene that, everybody thought, provided an immensely satisfying close to the behemoth \u201cAvengers\u201d saga.<\/p>\n

To tiptoe around that little inconvenience, Downey Jr. is instead playing the new villain, Dr. Doom. And there will surely be a longwinded explanation for his uncanny resemblance to the fallen leader of the Avengers.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what Marvel fans keep begging for: More complicated exposition that calls back to decades-old flicks.<\/p>\n

How depressing and desperate.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has struggled since the glory days of the Avengers. \u00a9Walt Disney Co.\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

You know what Disney\u2019s Benny Hill scramble for a hit reminds me of?<\/p>\n

The 1980s.<\/p>\n

That was an altogether silly decade in entertainment when craven Hollywood could get away with murder with little to no consequences.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite infractions: Maud Adams played the Bond girl in \u201cOctopussy,\u201d starring Roger Moore, just seven years after playing the Bond girl in \u201cThe Man with the Golden Gun,\u201d starring Roger Moore, and nobody batted a GoldenEye.<\/p>\n

Campier was on TV, when Al Corley was replaced as Steven Carrington on \u201cDynasty\u201d by Jack Coleman \u2014 and the obvious change of appearance was explained away by plastic surgery after an oil rig explosion.<\/p>\n

\"Films<\/p>\n

Films like \u201cThunderbolts\u201d have scored decent reviews, but failed to gain traction with audiences. \u00a9Walt Disney Co.\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

And, really, that\u2019s what the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become: an expensive and knotty \u201880s soap opera that will go to laughable lengths to boost sagging numbers.<\/p>\n

The $2 billion question is: Will their frantic pandering pay off?<\/p>\n

Disney and Marvel Studios are on their knees praying that the past six years were, in \u201cEndgame\u201d parlance, a blip, and that audiences simply need to be reminded of their love of superheroes. The MCU has had just three films crack $1 billion post-Covid: \u201cSpider-Man: No Way Home,\u201d \u201cDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness\u201d and \u201cDeadpool & Wolverine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the rest have underperformed or downright face-planted, even relatively well-reviewed tries such as \u201cThe Fantastic Four: First Steps\u201d and \u201cThunderbolts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, don\u2019t forget that \u201cDoomsday\u201d \u2014 apt title! \u2014 is partly the result of a company PR disaster.<\/p>\n

The baddie taking the reins from Thanos wasn\u2019t originally supposed to be Downey Jr.\u2019s Dr. Doom.<\/p>\n

\"Jonathan<\/p>\n

Jonathan Majors was meant to play Kang the Conqueror in several axed Marvel films.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Majors, the once rising star who played Kang the Conqueror in that infestation of a threequel \u201cAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,\u201d was set to reprise his part in \u201cAvengers: The Kang Dynasty\u201d before an ex-girlfriend accused him of domestic violence and he was found guilty of misdemeanor assault<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n

Kang was KO\u2019d.<\/p>\n

So directors Anthony and Joe Russo, whose \u201cThe Electric State<\/a>\u201d for Netflix ranks as one of the most expensive movies ever made and is among the worst of the 2025, scrapped that and enlisted some 30 Marvel mainstays and franchise newcomers \u2014 the 20th Century Fox X-Men \u2014 to act as cinematic Viagra.<\/p>\n

And, yes, that assist should help the aging franchise perform better than it has been.<\/p>\n

But Disney must face facts that the era of the MCU as obligatory viewing is over. They overplayed their hand, and the lift won\u2019t last forever. If it does, see a doctor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a move of bewildering grandiosity, Disney is debuting four teaser trailers for next year\u2019s Marvel rinse-and-repeat, \u201cAvengers:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[120667,11007,2398,7028,156,2528,2529,409,111,139,69,18638,88302,120666,6456,40009],"class_list":{"0":"post-194578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-anthony-mackie","9":"tag-chris-evans","10":"tag-disney","11":"tag-doomsday","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-marvel","14":"tag-marvel-studios","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-newzealand","18":"tag-nz","19":"tag-robert-downey-jr","20":"tag-roger-moore","21":"tag-steve-rogers","22":"tag-taylor-swift","23":"tag-walt-disney"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}