Despite the excitement, I cannot believe that the cast reveal forAvengers: Doomsdaylasted five and a half hours. When word first got around that Marvel Studios would unveil a massive announcement to rival Robert Downey Jr.’s casting as Doctor Doom on July 15, 2025, I was just as excited as everyone else. Eventually,Marvel Studios' surprise announcementwas revealed in the form of a live stream. Many thought the set chair bearing Chris Hemsworth’s name would lead to a bigger reveal, but the majority did not expect a fullcast list forAvengers: Doomsday.
After all,Avengers: Doomsday’s storyis still over a year away. Two other massiveMarvel movies of 2025are expected before then, as are several more Marvel Television projects. Nonetheless, Marvel utilized the live stream to reveal every actor - at least, so far - that has been cast inAvengers: Doomsday,raising anticipation for the first half of a major two-part story that will culminate in 2027’sAvengers: Secret Wars. As I have said, this was all very exciting, but I could not believe it when Marvel’s announcement stretched past the five-hour mark.
The MCU Just Gave Us 27 Cast Members Who Will Be In Avengers: Doomsday
A Massive Marvel Movie Is Imminent
By the time the live stream by Marvel had ended, 27 cast members had been confirmed forAvengers: Doomsday. The first was Chris Hemsworth and the last was the already-announced Robert Downey Jr., with 25 other names synonymous with Marvel characters from across the decades nestled in between. Be it current MCU heroes like Anthony Mackie’s Captain America, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, or Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi - to name a tiny handful - or heroes fromupcoming Marvel movieslikeThe Fantastic Four: First StepsandThunderbolts*,Avengers: Doomsday’s cast is absolutely huge.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania(2023)
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier(2021)
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings(2021)
Bob (rumored to be Sentry)
Avengers
Avengers: Doomsday(2026)
Also included inAvengers: Doomsday’s cast are several members of the classicFoxX-Menmovie timeline. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were confirmed as Professor X and Magneto, alongside the likes of James Marsden as Cyclops, Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique, and Channing Tatum asDeadpool & Wolverine’s Gambit. Combining these with other MCU heroes played by Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, and Paul Rudd,Avengers: Doomsdayis shaping up to be the biggest MCU movie yet. To make things even more daunting, multiple bigMarvel actors were missing fromAvengers: Doomsday’s castlist.
I Can’t Believe The Avengers: Doomsday Only Revealed 1 Name Every Roughly 15 Minutes
The Announcement Stretched On Beyond Belief
Now that I have adequately summarized the sheer size ofAvengers: Doomsday’s cast,I can mention how unbelievable it was that Marvel only revealed one name every 15 minutes or so during the live stream. After a certain amount of time, the white noise over the live stream would change to a specific character theme and reveal another name in the line-up. Initially, the anticipation was massive for this event. However, as people realized just how long Marvel waited to reveal a new chair and cast member, excitement turned to disbelief.
Eventually, though, the frustration circled back around to enjoyment, with the hours that passed allowing meme creators to get creative…
Frustration even crept in, with fans waiting hours to see yet another chair with an actor’s name plastered to it. I must admit, the marketing strategy - however nonsensical it initially seemed - kept people invested, with Marvel’s live streams across various platforms reaching millions of viewers. Regardless, the frustration of one name every 15 minutes was felt. Eventually, though, the frustration circled back around to enjoyment, with the hours that passed allowing meme creators to get creative.
Avengers: Doomsday Casting News Sends Meme Creators Into Overdrive
The MCU’s bizarre drip-feed announcement of its Avengers: Doomsday cast has led, unsurprisingly, to some hilarious memes on the internet.
The endless memes of who could be on the back of the next chair forced the anticipation of each reveal to return. By the end of the five-and-a-half hours, audiences were still checking in to see who would be announced forAvengers: Doomsday. While I am still in disbelief that the event took as long as it did, I do not think anyone would label it a flop from Marvel, given how much it got people talking in all kinds of ways.
The Avengers: Doomsday Cast Reveal Deserved To Be An Event, But It Didn’t Need To Take Up 5 And A Half Hours
All of this is to say that Marvel Studios perhaps pushed things slightly too far withAvengers: Doomsday’s cast reveal. While I admit that the event was exciting, then frustrating, and then, a lot of fun, it still did not need to take up the time that it did. As it was, the cast announcement forAvengers: Doomsdaywas certainly a huge event, as the movie deserved to have. The film is clearly going to be an immense undertaking for Marvel to conclude the Multiverse Saga in style, meaning a big event to announce the cast was logical.
All that said, there is no denying it could have been much shorter than it was. Even an hour-long live stream would have been an improvement, with a name revealed every two minutes. That way, the anticipation of who is coming next would still be intact, yet the frustration and seemingly endless waiting-around would be removed. All I can say is that I hope whenever Marvel plans to announce the remaining rumored cast members ofAvengers: Doomsday, the studio will opt for a less time-consuming strategy!
