It’s no secret that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has been in a rather tumultuous state ever since the conclusion of the Infinity Saga with Spider-Man: Far from Home.
While Far from Home was a solid movie in its own right, it was simply the cherry on top of Avengers: Endgame, which was the culmination of the 21 MCU movies that came before it, and today stands as one of the crowning achievements in the history of comic book cinema. What’s even crazier is that not a single one of the total 23 movies in the Infinity Saga had anything less than a “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a feat likely to never be repeated again, even by Marvel.
In fact, I should say especially not by Marvel, as the MCU has been decidedly aimless ever since moving into its new era, which largely focused on the multiversal storytelling, to disappointingly mixed results. For every staggering achievement reminiscent of the old MCU days, such as Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings or Spider-Man: No Way Home, there were abominations like Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania and Thor: Love and Thunder, while the handling of the multiversal storylines left much to be desired. Then, of course, there was the whole debacle with Jonathan Majors, the very talented actor cast as the intended next big bad of the MCU, Kang the Conqueror, who was subsequently convicted of the assault and harassment of his ex-girlfriend, leading to an existential crisis within Marvel.
The head of the MCU since its inception, super-producer Kevin Feige, along with the returning CEO of Disney, Bob Iger, have since sought to right the ship, which involved emphasising quality over quantity in an already saturated superhero market and reconsidering the successor to Thanos. Thus, they dropped Majors’ Kang and Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, replacing him with the iconic Doctor Doom as the next existential threat to the Avengers, and indeed the multiverse, with former Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. shockingly selected to play the role.
This move can fairly be viewed as the MCU’s unwillingness to move on from its more successful past, which was led by Downey as Iron Man. Nonetheless, given the actor’s generational talent, not to mention the sheer scale and ambition of The Kang Dynasty’s replacement event movie, Avengers: Doomsday, which will be directed by the returning duo of Joe and Anthony Russo, Doomsday could be the very revitalisation the MCU needs, as it allows the franchise to course correct, and there will be Canadian actors and characters who likely play significant roles in this potential watershed moment.
For starters, there are the actors and characters that have been confirmed in what is surely the most stacked cast in cinematic history (which even includes some of the original cinematic X-Men, such as Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart, and Kelsey Grammar), and it has the budget to match, with Doomsday reportedly estimated to cost $1 billion USD to produce, considering the costs of this cast (which comes to over $250 million on its own), and another $600 million or so to actually make the movie. And this is all without even considering marketing costs!
Most of the usual suspects are set to return, with Chris Hemsworth as Thor headlining the Avengers cast this time around, and it has been confirmed that Canadian actor Simu Liu, who plays Shang-Chi, will appear in Doomsday. One headlining Canadian actor who is noticeably missing from the cast, though, is Evangeline Lily, who played The Wasp in the Ant-Man and The Wasp trilogy but has since reportedly retired from acting. While her departure is seemingly unambiguous, especially since she is not under contract for another Marvel movie, there is less certainty as to whether Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine – the two most prominent Canadian characters in entire history of comic books – will appear in the movie, though there have been plenty of hints to suggest that they will indeed feature in Doomsday, which is hardly surprising given record-breaking success of Deadpool & Wolverine.
If not, it is almost guaranteed that they will instead appear in the planned sequel to Avengers: Secret Wars, as they are too valuable and popular to be sidelined for what are likely the MCU’s two biggest entries in its entire history. Still, all we can do is speculate right now, as Marvel and Disney are doing all they can to keep the production under wraps, while Avengers: Doomsday is not slated for release until December 18th, 2026.
I can bring up Thunderbolts as one of the best MCU entries of late.