Marvel Studios pulled back the curtain on Avengers: Doomsday at CinemaCon last night, and now Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has dropped a few more hints about what fans can expect.
Talking to Entertainment Weekly in Las Vegas, the studio head confirmed that the movie is taking inspiration from the comics. While he didn't name them, we know enough about Doomsday to say that he's likely referring to Jonathan Hickman's work on Avengers, New Avengers, and Secret Wars.
"We're not talking too much about story, but I think people know that the story of Doomsday is inspired by a very famous comic run in which universes are colliding, and Earths encounter one another, and different timelines encounter one another," Feige mused. "And in movie speak, what that allows us to do is get different casts from different franchises."
At the very least, that means bringing together three distinct timelines: Earth-616, Earth-828, and Earth-10005, the homes of the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men.
We'll almost certainly get a few additional surprises, but for Feige, revisiting the X-Men was a full-circle moment that meant revisiting the franchise he started his Hollywood career working on.
"I was a part of the first couple many, many, many, many, many years ago," he told the site. "Now that they're back home, we thought: We have to utilize them. Deadpool & Wolverine was our first opportunity to do that and touch upon it, and it just felt like an amazing opportunity to pit multiple universes against each other, but you care about all of them."
Adding that there are "generations of people" who feel strongly about the original X-Men cast, as well as the Avengers and Fantastic Four, Feige said, "Bringing them all together is what we have tasked the brothers with doing for us."
In multiple interviews, Magneto actor Sir Ian McKellen has said that the mutant uses his mastery of magnetism to destroy New Jersey. Asked about those claims, Feige turned to Avengers: Doomsday co-director Joe Russo and said, "Does he destroy New Jersey in the movie?"
The filmmaker responded, "I think he might've misspoke. I don't think he destroys New Jersey." Feige chimed in with, "There's a New Jersey presence," leaving us no closer to knowing whether this scene actually happens.
In a separate conversation with Fandango, the Marvel Studios boss was asked how Avengers: Doomsday connects to Avengers: Secret Wars. It's a little too soon to talk about the latter, as doing so would likely spoil this December's Avengers movie.
Despite that, Feige did reveal, "People familiar with the comic stories see that they will relate. They relate in a very different way than 'Infinity War' and 'Endgame.' I think people are expecting a similar connection, and while one certainly does lead into the other, it's in a very different way. I will say that ‘Secret Wars’ is as ambitious a project as we’ve ever embarked on."
Avengers: Doomsday is set to be released in theaters on December 18.