Marvel Studios is ending the Multiverse Saga with Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, a pair of highly ambitious blockbusters that will bring multiple superhero teams together to fight against the powerful Doctor Doom. As exciting as these films sound on paper, they also have a lot on their plates to balance, raising questions about how exactly directors Joe and Anthony Russo are going to pull this off. One rumor that’s been making the rounds purports that Secret Wars could be split into two movies, a bit of speculation that had some fans found concerning. Fortunately, the latest updates indicate this rumor is not true.
In the latest edition of his newsletter, industry insider Jeff Sneider fielded a reader question about the possibility of Secret Wars becoming a two-parter. “No. As of right now, Marvel is not planning to split Avengers: Secret Wars into two films,” he wrote. “That may have been mentioned by someone, somewhere along the chain of power, but it’s not being seriously discussed in Burbank due to the difficulty of scheduling the enormous cast — not to mention the prospect of having to pay Robert Downey Jr.’s even more enormous salary again. This is for the best, as I feel that such a move would bite them in the ass with audiences, who would smell the corporate greed from a mile away.”
Splitting Avengers: Secret Wars Into Two Movies Would Be a Bad Decision
At first glance, it’s somewhat understandable why splitting Secret Wars into two might have been on the table at one point. It would give the filmmakers extra real estate to work with, giving them additional breathing room to properly flesh out character dynamics and storylines. Even if Doomsday and Secret Wars sport protracted run times (which seems like a reasonable assumption), there’s only so much screen time to go around, and odds are, some characters will draw the short straw (especially since so much of Doomsday will have to be dedicated to building up Downey’s Doctor Doom). That said, going this route could prove to be problematic for a variety of reasons.
As Sneider alludes to, a third new Avengers movie would be a logistical nightmare for Marvel Studios. Anyone who’s been following the development of Doomsday knows these movies are not easy to put together. With so many moving parts, figuring out scheduling becomes a headache; some members of the Doomsday cast weren’t even sure who they were acting with. Alan Cumming shared that he did “the entire film in isolation” and his scenes involved “lots of green screen” and face replacement. There’s also the fact that Avengers movies aren’t cheap, so Disney would have to sign a very large check for the production budget. After making such a hefty investment in Doomsday and Secret Wars (which are ending the most mixed era of MCU history), the studio would find that a bitter pill to swallow amidst a changing box office landscape.
There’s obvious financial incentive to splitting Secret Wars into two parts. Disney and Marvel would be able to add another major blockbuster to the release calendar. While the MCU’s box office prowess isn’t as strong now as it was during the heyday of the Infinity Saga, odds are the new Avengers films will do quite well commercially (especially since they’ll be facing less competition over the holiday season window). However, there would need to be a legitimate story reason for turning Secret Wars into a two-parter, and it’s difficult to see what that could be. If this rumor panned out, the situation would be eerily reminiscent of the Hobbit trilogy, which was originally envisioned as a duology before a third film was added. By the time the series wrapped up, the narrative had been spread thin across three epic films and audience fatigue had settled in.
That’s a risk Marvel desperately wants to avoid since Doomsday and Secret Wars represent its best chance to get the MCU back on track after a rocky few years. Secret Wars is even being positioned as a soft reset for the franchise that paves the way for a new, streamlined continuity, so Marvel has a lot riding on these two movies. The last thing the studio needs is for fan anticipation to turn sour because they need to buy three tickets to get one full story. While Doomsday and Secret Wars undoubtedly have a lot of ground to cover, the Russos are Marvel veterans with plenty of experience balancing large ensembles and sprawling storylines. If anyone can bring the Multiverse Saga to a satisfying conclusion in two movies, it’s them — just as they did with the Infinity Saga.
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