Avengers: Endgame is still one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. But since then, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has lost a bit of its luster, with box office returns shrinking year after year. Marvel will try to turn this around with next year’s Avengers: Doomsday, which will feature franchise mainstay Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) returning in a new role: the villainous Doctor Doom.
Teaser trailers for Doomsday are set to start airing this weekend before screenings of Avatar: Fire and Ash—which, if history is any guide, will pack people into theaters (even if the Avatar franchise itself is middling). But the first teaser trailer appears to have leaked early, and it’s a doozy.
We’re going to talk about it, but be warned that there are SPOILERS below! Let this collage of Marvel movie moments be the dividing line between blissful ignorance and forbidden knowledge.
[SPOILER] returns in Avengers: Doomsday
At least according to this probably-real leaked teaser
The teaser going around is of very low quality. In this age of ready-made AI videos, we can’t say for sure that it’s not a forgery, where the blurriness hides the telltale signs of AI slop. That said, whenever this teaser has gone up on various social media channels over the past day, it’s usually come right down. This can be reasonably interpreted as Disney and its army of lawyers trying to scrub the teaser from the internet, which is something they’ve been known to do before.
Also, with this teaser due to play in theaters in just a few days, it’s plausible that someone could have snagged some blurry video of it at an early screening. So we have a case for why the teaser is legitimate. But what does it actually show? (Here’s your real last chance to get out before the spoilers start flying.)
It shows a guy on a motorcycle arriving home, and not just any guy: Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, played by Chris Evans. He puts his Captain America uniform down and cradles a baby in his arms. This follows up on the conclusion to Avengers: Endgame, which ended with Steve choosing to stay in the 1940s and live a full life with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell).
We then see some words on the screen: “Steve Rogers will return in Avengers: Doomsday.” A tinkly piano version of the Avengers theme music plays.
This is only the beginning
Expect more teaser trailers to follow
It’s not hard to believe that Captain America is making a comeback in Avengers: Doomsday. In 2024, there were lots of reports that he was coming back, and although Chris Evans denied it in interviews, not many people believed it. That seems to have been a good instinct.
Captain America’s return fits with the general turn the MCU has been taking lately. Again, Robert Downey Jr. is coming back, which feels like an attempt to reignite that old Marvel magic (even if he’s playing a different role). Daniel Richtman, who regularly reports on Hollywood scoops, says that Steve Rogers may even be the “lead character” in Avengers: Doomsday. Obviously that’s just a rumor, but Richtman does have a history of keeping his ear to the ground on matters like this.
Richtman also says this is the first of four teasers that will play in theaters. While this one focuses on Steve Rogers, there will be one about Thor (Chris Hemsworth), one about Doctor Doom, and another general teaser that brings in the whole cast. The teasers will reportedly air in theaters at different times, which sounds like a smart way to get people coming back.
With Netflix buying Warner Bros. Discovery and likely removing more movies from theaters slowly, I’ll support any strategy that gets people to buy tickets. That said, if you’d rather stay home, I’d put the odds of these teaser trailers finding their way online at nearly 100%.
Disney has one year to get people excited about Marvel movies again
In the meantime, what do you think this weird shape is?
Questions remain. For instance, Joe and Anthony Russo — the directors behind every Avengers movie since 2018’s Infinity War — uploaded the above image to their Instagram page around the time the leaked trailer started making its rounds online.
What are we looking at here? Is it the Roman numeral “V,” as in Doomsday will be the fifth Avengers movie? Is it the letter “V,” as in “this post is Very important in some secret way”? Is it a picture of something crucial, but we can’t tell what it is because we’ve zoomed in way too close? It’s probably that one.
Also, you may be asking how Captain America could become an important part of the new Avengers movie when he’s stuck in the past. I would reply that these are comic book movies, so literally anything can happen. Time travel, alternate realities, clones… there’s no shortage of ways to bring Cap back.
You can argue, but these are the best movie sequels ever made
It’s difficult for a sequel to surpass the original, but sometimes, that’s exactly what happens.
Doomsday is coming
Avengers: Endgame will hit theaters on December 18, 2026. Before that, Disney is re-releasing Endgame into theaters on September 25. And before that, Tom Holland will return as Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Brand New Day on July 31. If Disney wants people to become interested in Marvel again, this does seem like the right lineup.
And if you need a hit of superhero fiction before that, you might want to check out the upcoming fifth and final season of another show.
- Release Date
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December 18, 2026
- Director
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Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
- Writers
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Stephen McFeely, Michael Waldron, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee
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Vanessa Kirby
Sue Storm / Invisible Woman
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Joseph Quinn
Johnny Storm / Human Torch
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Ebon Moss-Bachrach
Ben Grimm / The Thing
