Alexander "peter bjorn" Fadin Benedict Cumberbatch just revealed all the details about Avengers Secret Wars and Doomsday. Even a brief discussion of Marvel's X-Men era, which is taking place after that. Marvel and Kevin Feige were undoubtedly thrilled to see him do that.
So, the main question here is:
Conspiracy theory?
Probably not.
Marvel told him to spoil everything because they tend to control interviews like that on purpose. You have probably seen them deploying tactical spoilers to deflect negative attention from other places recently. All the Ryan Reynolds/Blake Lively stuff that they don't want people thinking about, and probably all that negative stuff with Captain America Brave New World.
The actor confirmed a bunch of details on both Avengers Doomsday and Secret Wars, and how Marvel has changed the storyline for all the characters since they fired Jonathan Majors. Avengers 5 from Kang Dynasty transformed to Doomsday, and brought back Robert Downey Jr.
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I was hoping for a Doctor Doom/Doctor Strange team up from the comics like Triumph and Torment, but it sounds like Robert Downey Jr isn't going to be around after Secret War. So they got to do something completely different.
Doctor Strange is not in Doomsday
Strange might just be in a post-credits scene that sets up Avengers Secret Wars. What he said was his absence from Doomsday has to do with the character Doctor Strange not aligning with this part of the story. Now that it's changed, like he was meant to be a bigger part of the Kang dynasty. There's a lot to unpack here.
In the original plan for Avengers 5, when it was called Kang Dynasty Shang Chi also would have been one of the films main characters (surprise, surprise). That version was meant to focus on Kang the Conqueror in the Council of Kangs since then, MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) completely retooled the film to introduce a Victor Von Doom Robert Downey Jr.
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I think this actually confirms a long running theory people had about Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings of Power. Way back when the Shang-Chi movie happened, there were all kinds of theories about where the Ten Rings of Power came from. Where was that post-credits scene pointing to? What was the whole meaning behind the beacon? Who was the beacon signaling to?
During Ant Man in the Wasp Quantumania, Kang's larger time ship, he constructed around his original smaller one, had similar rings with similar writing on them as the Ten Rings of Power. People were like, oh, probably Kang, Kang created the Ten Rings of Power. That makes sense. All because we knew that Avengers 5 was heading up to the Council of Kangs.
Spider Man. Not the Iron Man
Avengers Doomsday revolves way more around the Fantastic Four characters and Doctor Doom, which it sounds like all come from that same Fantastic Four universe that we're going to see in the movie. Using that as more of a direct lead up to Doomsday, which makes sense, because it's the last motion picture, that Marvel's releasing, right before Avengers Doomsday.
So of course there'll be a post-credits scene like Thor Ragnarok directly sets up the beginning of Doomsday. And because Kevin Feige made the concept of anchor beings such a big deal during Deadpool and Wolverine it was his mastermind idea, and he wouldn't say exactly who the anchor being of the MCU was. But he did say that the person was still alive. So Iron Man isn't that Marvel Jesus.
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I think the idea is that Doctor Doom was going to come and try and kill the MCU anchor. When Strange was still in the movie, you had the idea of maybe a Doctor Strange versus Doctor Doom face off using their magic and Doctor Doom's technology. But now, because Benedict Cumberbatch is saying that he's not in the sript, I actually think that Spider-Man is the anchor.
Personally, I think the plot of both versions of Avengers five, the Kang Dynasty version and the Doomsday version, sounded like they were both going to be adaptations of the Avengers Time Runs Out storyline with the incursions.
In both versions, you wind up with the same result where the multiverse finishes collapsing into a battle world. And that's where Secret Wars picks up. They're adapting more of the Doctor Doom storyline from that and giving it to Robert Downey Jr, where he's trying to save the multiverse. But also ultimately him becoming the main villain of that story. As God Emperor Doom.
Secret Wars
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Secret Wars was always going to be a multiverse movie made up of a bunch of legacy actors like a multiverse Avengers team giving them their own version from the Endgame. Marvel is soft rebooting the MCU.
And because Benedict Cumberbatch is just listing off all these different details, there's so much to unpack here. One of the side notes is that Shang-Chi got a big downgrade in the Avengers Doomsday version of the movie, a real big bummer for him. They postpone your sequel because they'd rather have your director make Kang Dynasty, then make the new Spider-Man. Where's that kung-fu sequel Mr. Cretton?
Then they push you to the back of the team because you're not as critical to the plot anymore. But at least he's still in the movie. Benedict Cumberbatch then goes on to say this in his own words. He says, that shouldn't be saying this, but. And then proceeds to go on with a bunch more spoilers.
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In Secret Wars, Doctor Strange was supposed to be one of the people who survived the destruction of the multiverse and made it to Battle World. Most of the MCU characters were supposed to die like another Infinity War snap ending, because the entire multiverse was meant to collapse. Secret Wars would have featured a very different cast of characters from Doomsday, mostly made up of a few surviving MCU people and many, many legacy actors from the pre-MCU Marvel era movies.
I think a better comparison to make now is a bigger version of Deadpool and Wolverine where you basically see X-Men coming back, Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, probably Venom, classic Fantastic Four actors, everybody that you thought you might see in Deadpool and Wolverine but did not see.
Thank you, Mr. Sherlock, you gave us all the details. Feeling so Moriarti-ish.
The future of MCU and Strange
Cumberbatch's talked about where Marvel is headed after Secret Wars, when Marvel uses it to do a soft reboot on the MCU. And going forward, he's making it sound like Doctor Strange is central to the X-Men era of the MCU. That could mean a lot of things, like Doctor Strange does get involved in X-Men based stories.
We even saw a version of him during X-Men 97!
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By the way, he's hyping himself up in the interview makes it sound like he's thinking of himself, like the new Marvel Jesus (so many Deadpool references! Hannover). The power of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to change forever.
I do think that Doctor Strange will continue to be involved in the higher level story stuff across Marvel Phase 7, like once we eventually get to Avengers versus X-Men in the movies. Next big thing that Benedict Cumberbatch talked about was Doctor Strange 3, and there have been a bunch more changes to that movie.
Originally it was going to come out right before Kang Dynasty. We're going to use the clear post-credits scene with the incursions to lead up to the council of Kang's by revealing that they were the ones pushing a lot of the incursions to happen faster. That's why you've been seeing all the incursions happening in all the different Marvel movies recently.
We think a lot of the original plot for Doctor Strange 3 would have just dealt with that. And at the end of Part Three, they would have learned about the Council of Kings and set up the beginning of Kang Dynasty.
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Now it sounds like from what Benedict Cumberbatch is saying, Doctor Strange 3 might not get released until Secret Wars, meaning the plot would also completely have to change because they'll be past all the incursions. That Multiverse stuff. And because Benedict Cumberbatch said Doctor Strange is critical to the X-Men era of Marvel.
Like where Marvel's headed next, that makes it feel like Doctor Strange 3 will feature more X-Men based magic characters. There are many, but they don't even have a script for that movie yet. So like literally, we don't know what the story is going to be.
One of the other cool things I think they could actually do with Doctor Strange 3 that they weren't going to do before is more of a classic defender storyline. Now I'm talking about comic book defenders, but Doctor Strange was leading that team.
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Or they could just use the movie for Midnight Suns team up and make it more of a Midnight Suns movie. Everybody asking where Moon Knight is going to be showing up next, supposedly he's supposed to be in that Midnight Suns team. Ryan Reynolds said that they almost got Nicholas Cage, Ghost Rider back in Deadpool and Wolverine. They could do an MCU Ghost Rider on Midnight Suns.
All the possibilities are open. Thanks to that spoiler-alert interview.
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