Avengers: Doomsday release date, cast, trailer and everything you need to know

• Avengers: Doomsday release date – when can we expect Avengers 5?
• Avengers: Doomsday trailer – watch the Avengers 5 trailers here!
• Avengers: Doomsday cast – who is joining Robert Downey Jr in Avengers 5?
• Avengers: Doomsday plot – what will Avengers 5 be about?

Avengers: Doomsday is getting closer and closer, and if you're in the UK, you're even getting to see it earlier than expected. You've still got to wait until December, but it will be arriving two days earlier than the US on 16 December.

While you wait for that, Marvel has been treating fans to new looks at the movie, including two full trailers that follows the four teasers across the Christmas 2025 period which focused on different characters, including the return of Chris Evans as Steve Rogers.

The next Avengers movie is half of a double bill that will bring The Multiverse Saga to a close, but before we can even start thinking of Secret Wars, there's a lot that needs to be done with Avengers: Doomsday. Here's everything you need to know about Avengers: Doomsday.

Avengers: Doomsday release date – when can we expect Avengers 5?

As mentioned above, Avengers: Doomsday will now arrive in UK cinemas on Wednesday 16 December, two days ahead of the US release on Friday 18 December.

The movie was originally set to land in May 2025 and then in May 2026, a delay that also impacted Avengers: Secret Wars which will now land in cinemas on 17 December 2027 instead of 7 May 2027.

Like the Infinity War/Endgame double-bill, filming was planned to start on Avengers: Secret Wars pretty soon after Doomsday wrapped. That didn't happen and now it seems like production won't begin until later this year, so we'll have to wait and see if that leads to a release date delay.

Avengers: Doomsday trailer – watch the Avengers 5 trailers here!

As mentioned above, the first full trailer for Avengers: Doomsday landed on Monday 20 July as an early surprise for Marvel fans ahead of the Comic-Con panel on 25 July.

The trailer has led fans to believe that a depressing ending is in store, while a poster appears to spoil Doctor Doom's motive in the movie.

If you missed the trailer, check it out below:

We then got another trailer in August 2026 which was originally exclusively played to the Comic-Con audience.

It's a darker trailer than the first one, mostly focused on Doctor Doom and his fall into villainy. "Victor was always the smartest guy in the room. He used to be different. He used to be kind, he used to be caring, and then, everything he loved was taken from him," Sue Storm is heard saying.

Check it out below if you didn't see it above:

Before the trailers, we had four teaser trailers for Avengers: Doomsday which centred on Steve Rogers, Thor, the X-Men and finally the Wakandans and (one of) the Fantastic Four.

We won't share them all again here, you can click on the various links in the paragraph above, but we will share the X-Men one again as it was the best of the four:

Following the release of the fourth (and so far final) teaser, the Russos complicated matters by saying they weren't actually trailers at all: "What you've been watching for the last four weeks… are not teasers. Or trailers. They are stories. They are clues… Pay attention."

If that wasn't confusing enough, Joe Russo then added: "Each one of those trailers is narrative information and it's all part of a larger story. So, I would argue that Doomsday has already started for you."

The full trailer featured the continuation of some of these teasers, such as the meeting between Shuri and the Fantastic Four and the dark X-Mansion chat between Charles Xavier and Magneto.

With the full trailer release, tickets are also on sale now for select Avengers: Doomsday screenings in the US. It means we already have an estimated runtime for the movie of 165 minutes, or two hours and 45 minutes if you prefer. This isn't final, but since tickets are on sale, it will be around that mark.

Avengers: Doomsday cast – who is joining Robert Downey Jr in Avengers 5?

Let's start with the massive news. Robert Downey Jr has been confirmed to play iconic Marvel villain Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday.

We don't know exactly how it'll work yet, but it wouldn't be a surprise if this Doctor Doom comes from whatever world the upcoming Fantastic Four movie takes place in. It remains to be seen if Victor Von Doom is a Tony Stark variant.

However, we have now had our first proper look at him in action, as well as his accent from the voiceover that starts the full trailer.

We had to wait until March 2025 for further official cast additions, but we now know thanks to a bunch of chairs that the following MCU stars are coming back for Avengers: Doomsday:

• Chris Hemsworth (Thor)
• Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm/Invisible Woman)
• Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson/Captain America)
• Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes)
• Letitia Wright (Shuri/Black Panther)
• Paul Rudd (Scott Lang/Ant-Man)
• Wyatt Russell (John Walker/US Agent)
• Tenoch Huerta Mejía (Namor)
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben Grimm/The Thing)
• Simu Liu (Shang-Chi)
• Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova)

• Kelsey Grammer (Hank McCoy/Beast)
• Lewis Pullman (Robert 'Bob' Reynolds/Sentry)
• Danny Ramirez (Joaquin Torres/Falcon)
• Joseph Quinn (Johnny Storm/Human Torch)
• David Harbour (Red Guardian)
• Winston Duke (M'Baku)
• Hannah John-Kamen (Ava Starr/Ghost)
• Tom Hiddleston (Loki)
• Patrick Stewart (Charles Xavier/Professor X)
• Ian McKellen (Erik Magnus Lehnsherr/Magneto)
• Alan Cumming (Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler)
• Rebecca Romijn (Raven Darkhölme/Mystique)
• James Marden (Scott Summers/Cyclops)
• Channing Tatum (Remy LeBeau/Gambit)
• Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic)

The presence of the Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four casts aren't a surprise, given Feige confirmed they'd be in the Avengers movies at Comic-Con 2024, but the OG X-Men returns are the ones to get fans most excited.

We're still missing some major names that were widely expected to be in Avengers: Doomsday, such as Tom Holland's Spider-Man.

However, Downey Jr teased future cast announcements to come in March 2025, but nobody else has been announced yet. Unless you consider Chris Evans to be a 'new' announcement, given that his return was first reported in December 2024.

After those reports, Evans denied that he'd be back in the MCU. Of course, we now know that he was telling a bit of a lie. In April 2026, Evans teased that there is a "very real reason" why he's back in Avengers: Doomsday, but obviously didn't go into specifics.

Hayley Atwell was also rumoured to return as Peggy Carter, with this finally confirmed during Marvel's Comic-Con panel in July 2026.

Benedict Cumberbatch is also confusing everybody, possibly on purpose, saying that Doctor Strange won't be in Avengers: Doomsday, although will be in "a lot" of Avengers: Secret Wars. Cumberbatch has since said that he is in Avengers: Doomsday, only days after his previous comments, so who knows.

Marvel fans think Downey Jr spoiled the return of Doctor Strange in an Easter-themed Instagram post in April 2026, along with the return of Spider-Man, but nothing official has been said yet.

Brie Larson teased fans in August 2024 that she knows "things" about her MCU comeback, but stopped short of confirming a return, while Ryan Reynolds has no idea if he'll be back as Deadpool and Tessa Thompson won't say either way.

Reynolds did make a surprise appearance at Marvel's Comic-Con panel in July 2026, but it was just to ask a question from the audience. Some fans still believe this confirmed his appearance in the movie though.

Further 'evidence' came during D23 Expo when Reynolds roped in Hugh Jackman to ask whether Marvel needed "some help rounding out the cast". Again, there's been no confirmation that Jackman is in the movie, but some fans now think that he is.

Scarlett Johansson, meanwhile, has completely ruled out a return if you believe her. So has Mark Ruffalo and perhaps the fact that Spider-Man: Brand New Day ended with Bruce Banner being hospitalised, perhaps this explains his absence in Doomsday.

There might well be surprises in store for fans, with Alan Cumming comparing it to "superhero soup". "There's so many of them in it, I just can't keep up. Also, they're really hard scripts to read, superhero films, because it's all action and then the names. Everyone's got two names, you know," he added.

"And sometimes there were secret names in it because they didn't want to let out this certain character was coming back, so they called them somebody else in the script. It was so confusing."

Now that we know the cast of the X-Men reboot, can we expect to see any of them crop up in Doomsday? Or even Noah Jupe who's confirmed for Avengers: Secret Wars? We'll have to wait and see.

But who will form the Avengers team in Avengers: Doomsday to take on Doctor Doom?

Sam Wilson is asked by Thaddeus Ross to restart the Avengers in Captain America: Brave New World. However, the movie ended with Ross imprisoned in The Raft, so it's unclear if whoever has taken over as US President will follow through on this.

A new twist has been thrown into the mix with Thunderbolts* which ends with the central team – Yelena, Red Guardian, Ghost, John Walker and Bucky – rebranded by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine as The New Avengers.

They're still in this position in the post-credit scene of Thunderbolts* which takes place 14 months after the events of the movie. However, Wilson has filed for copyright of the name, so perhaps Doomsday will feature more than one Avengers team.

At a Disney event in December 2025, it was seemingly confirmed that the other Avengers team would consist of Captain America, Thor, Shang-Chi, Falcon, Ant-Man and, surprisingly, Loki.

Perhaps there could even be three Avengers teams as it seems the MCU has been working to set up the Young Avengers.

Hailee Steinfeld's Kate Bishop joined the MCU in the Disney+ show Hawkeye and since the TV shows are now part of the universe in a bigger way than before, it could mean they're all paving the way for the team to be introduced.

Steinfeld reprised her role at the end of The Marvels and Kamala Khan certainly looked to be setting up the Young Avengers, so they could well have a part to play in the next Avengers movie. Iman Vellani might have been accidentally confirmed for the new movie, so this could strengthen the Young Avengers theory.

Behind the scenes, Joe and Anthony Russo took over from original director Destin Daniel Cretton, who left the movie in November 2023. Stephen McFeely has written the script, taking over from Jeff Loveness, but Michael Waldron is also helping on Doomsday's script. The pair will also be writing Avengers: Secret Wars.

Avengers: Doomsday plot – what will Avengers 5 be about?

Even with the trailers, we're still no clearer what Avengers: Doomsday will actually be about, and the official synopsis doesn't shed much light: "Beloved heroes from three distinct universes will be set on a deadly collision course and face an existential threat unlike anything they've ever encountered."

Joe Russo teased in March 2025 that they found a "very radical" way into the story which will "challenge audiences". He followed this up in May 2026 by saying: "What Marvel's done better than anybody in history is that serialised storytelling, at scale. And Doomsday is a complete reinvention, it's another swing.

“I don't think the audience is expecting it at all, what happens in the movie, and its tone and its subject matter. But I'm hoping it feels like another profound shift for them in that serialised story."

It's also been compared to "Phase Zero" by Joe Russo who added: "This is starting over from scratch. We want to make sure everybody feels like this isn't leaning on anything from the past."

Ebon Moss-Bachrach has also teased that it's "tragic", so make of that what you will. Fans already fear that Thor will die after a tribute video that Chris Hemsworth reposted in May 2025. On a less emotional note, Tom Hiddleston hyped it up in May 2026 by calling it "magnificent" and "extraordinary".

All we really know is that it'll set up Secret Wars, and Captain America: Brave New World's credit scene certainly points to that storyline from the comics where different worlds' Earths are pitted against each other. The post-credit scene of Thunderbolts* also saw The Fantastic Four's space craft enter the orbit of the 'main' MCU universe.

We didn't get any more information about this in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, but we did get the first look at (the back of) Doctor Doom, confirming he's likely come from their universe (Earth-828) and not the 'main' MCU universe (Earth-616).

Don't blame the cast for being so secretive though, they started filming the movie without a finished script, so it might even be a surprise for them. At least we don't have too long to wait to find out what's in store for us.

Avengers: Doomsday is released in UK cinemas on 16 December and in US cinemas on 18 December.

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Hugh Armitage is Movies Editor at Digital Spy.

Movies Editor, Digital Spy  Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor.  Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world.   After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
 

Gabriella Geisinger is a freelance film critic and journalist, with a focus on J-drama & film, and the Japanese production industry. She was previously Locations Editor at Screen International and Deputy Movies Editor at Digital Spy. Her writing can also befound in Curzon, 1883, and more. A born and raised New Yorker, she loves coffee and the colour black, obviously.