While all eyes are currently on next December's Avengers: Doomsday, it's impossible to shake the feeling that Avengers: Secret Wars will be the much bigger movie.
Doomsday is bound to feature some big surprises, but when it comes to Multiversal cameos and dream team-ups, Secret Wars is surely going to deliver. If a new rumour from Daniel Richtman is to be believed, that'll start with the four leads we can expect to see take centre stage in the 2027 blockbuster.
He's reporting that Tom Holland (Peter Parker/Spider-Man), Tobey Maguire (Peter Parker/Spider-Man), Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), and Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) will all have major roles in Avengers: Secret Wars.
Maguire is already rumoured to appear in Avengers: Doomsday, as are Jackman and Reynolds. Holland is expected to be absent from the movie, but the Spider-Man: Brand New Day star should be a focal point in a story that may finally see Earth-616's web-slinger get his alien costume.
We can only speculate about what each of these characters will bring to the table, of course. However, Maguire and Jackman standing side-by-side—not to mention a Spider-Man/Deadpool team-up—isn't something any of us would have been able to imagine when Avengers: Endgame was released in 2019.
Avengers: Secret Wars will likely be Maguire's final turn as Spider-Man. Jackman and Reynolds are highly likely to appear in the rebooted MCU, and Holland is expected to star in at least two more solo outings before potentially passing the mantle to Miles Morales.
"Our love for Marvel is based on the books that we read as kids, the books that we fell in love with," Joe Russo previously said. "The one series that we adored growing up was Secret Wars. It’s incredibly ambitious. It would be bigger than Infinity War and Endgame. But it’s a massive undertaking."
"Those two movies were very hard to make. So trying to imagine making another two movies even bigger than those two? We’re going to have to sleep on that," he noted, before Anthony chimed in with, "It would be the biggest movie you could possibly imagine, so that’s what really excites us about the story — the ambition of it is even bigger than the ambition of the Infinity Saga."
The confirmed cast of Avengers: Secret Wars includes Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Mackie, Sadie Sink, Benedict Cumberbatch, Letitia Wright, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Paul Bettany, and Hayley Atwell.
Avengers: Doomsday is set to be released on December 18, 2026, with Avengers: Secret Wars scheduled to arrive on December 17, 2027.