I think the plan was always for the next Avengers movie to end with the reveal of RDJ as Doom.
Everything about how they were building up Kang to me felt like a misdirect.
They kept acting like this guy was gonna be the next Thanos, yet they defeated him at every appearance. Something that you just can't psychologically undo by going "No no but this time he's a Thanos" when it's time to take him serious.
They used "the Conquerer" name for the Quantumania version of the character even though that's considered the version that WOULD be the one they were leading up to revealing.
They went out of their way to call the next Avengers movie "Kang's Dynasty" when that seems pretty on the nose about where things were going andnever really made sense with the idea that it would be followed up by Secret Wars unless Kang was defeated in his own movie by Doom, though at the time l just assumed it would be another Majors variant.
Every version of Kang felt like a guy who was a heartbeat away from joiningthe heroes, and l think that's because unlike Thanos who was sympathetic emotionally, was still calling for genocide and pit his stolen children against each other in the name of making them strong, etcetc, they were actually building Kang up to end up as an Avenger.
None of the Majors Kangs had anything even resembling this type of evil in them.
Plus, since Endgame came out l was of the opinion that the only way to top Thanos would be that the next Thanos level person had to be someone who felt like a betrayal. Somebody we trusted as a good guy. For me, l thought that's what they'd been building with Scarlet Witch all the way up until they just sort of sped through her going bad with Multiverse of Madness. Itseemed like she was the one being built as the turncoat that all of her friends can't bring themselves to fight, and when she and Thanos had the moment where he doesn't know who she is, but she says "You will" l thought that was going to be something that had more meaning when she basically replaced him as the next big bad.
But having the next big bad be a guy who's literally wearing the face of the father of the MCU, is a way better way to accomplish that same thing. Spider-man wouldn't be all the conflicted about fighting Scarlet Witch. But l could see him totally freezing up trying to fight a guy who he knows isn't his dead father figure, but looks just like him. Say could be said about pretty much every single Avenger really.
It seems to me that in order to take people's minds off the black eye of "The next big Avengers movie is built around a guy who's currently being called a woman abuser" they just decided to do that reveal in real life and sacrifice the big "youve got to see this movie before you get the end spoiled" push for it in exchange for making the entire hype around the movie being spoiling that and saying "and now you've got to go see how we do it" and it worked brilliantly. I think they're way more comfortable with all of the negative discourse being that RDJ as Doom is lazy casting than they were with the talk around Marvel and Majors literally up until the moment they revealed RDJ.
Even the way they did the chairs reveal and RDJ comes out at the end and does the "shhh" felt like an idea from before they would've revealed it with the "shh" being something that would have a different meaning after you saw the movie.
They kept acting like this guy was gonna be the next Thanos, yet they defeated him at every appearance. Something that you just can't psychologically undo by going "No no but this time he's a Thanos" when it's time to take him serious.
They used "the Conquerer" name for the Quantumania version of the character even though that's considered the version that WOULD be the one they were leading up to revealing.
They went out of their way to call the next Avengers movie "Kang's Dynasty" when that seems pretty on the nose about where things were going andnever really made sense with the idea that it would be followed up by Secret Wars unless Kang was defeated in his own movie by Doom, though at the time l just assumed it would be another Majors variant.
Every version of Kang felt like a guy who was a heartbeat away from joiningthe heroes, and l think that's because unlike Thanos who was sympathetic emotionally, was still calling for genocide and pit his stolen children against each other in the name of making them strong, etcetc, they were actually building Kang up to end up as an Avenger.
None of the Majors Kangs had anything even resembling this type of evil in them.
Plus, since Endgame came out l was of the opinion that the only way to top Thanos would be that the next Thanos level person had to be someone who felt like a betrayal. Somebody we trusted as a good guy. For me, l thought that's what they'd been building with Scarlet Witch all the way up until they just sort of sped through her going bad with Multiverse of Madness. Itseemed like she was the one being built as the turncoat that all of her friends can't bring themselves to fight, and when she and Thanos had the moment where he doesn't know who she is, but she says "You will" l thought that was going to be something that had more meaning when she basically replaced him as the next big bad.
But having the next big bad be a guy who's literally wearing the face of the father of the MCU, is a way better way to accomplish that same thing. Spider-man wouldn't be all the conflicted about fighting Scarlet Witch. But l could see him totally freezing up trying to fight a guy who he knows isn't his dead father figure, but looks just like him. Say could be said about pretty much every single Avenger really.
It seems to me that in order to take people's minds off the black eye of "The next big Avengers movie is built around a guy who's currently being called a woman abuser" they just decided to do that reveal in real life and sacrifice the big "youve got to see this movie before you get the end spoiled" push for it in exchange for making the entire hype around the movie being spoiling that and saying "and now you've got to go see how we do it" and it worked brilliantly. I think they're way more comfortable with all of the negative discourse being that RDJ as Doom is lazy casting than they were with the talk around Marvel and Majors literally up until the moment they revealed RDJ.
Even the way they did the chairs reveal and RDJ comes out at the end and does the "shhh" felt like an idea from before they would've revealed it with the "shh" being something that would have a different meaning after you saw the movie.
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To think otherwise is just delusional
They did Ultron without Hank Pym. They did The Infinity Gauntlet without Lady Death, and they were doing to do Secret Wars without Doom if Kang wasn't binned off. End of discussion.
I’m just trying to point out that in the original Secret Wars, Doom being the final boss is a twist in the story. The Beyonder starts out as the villain and Doom takes his powers.
There is no reason at all to believe that they wouldn’t have done this but with Kang in the Beyonder’s place, unless you just want to be pessimistic.
“End of discussion”? You sound reasonable. /s
Seems way more likely to me that they wanted you to think what you're saying is true as a misdirect.
I can buy the idea that the original idea was maybe for Doom to be played by Majors as the "real" role he'd be playing for years to come but l still feel like the moment they knew they were getting the Fox rights, they knew they were secretly building to a Doom reveal.
There was nothing in the MCU to foreshadow or set up Doctor Doom until an empty chair and one mid-credits scene that was shot long after Marvel Studios overhauled their plans.
It wasn’t an essential component of their plans. And very likely, Doom was not an essential component of their plans.
Deadpool & Wolverine also came from the Fox acquisition and is obviously a much less important part of the Multiverse Saga, and that movie still came out a year before The Fantastic Four did.
Go back and look at the facts for yourself. Kang was never technically confirmed as the villain of Secret Wars. Feige contacted RDJ about Doom before Quantumania even came out. Whether or not *RDJ as Doom* was always what they fantasized about is another argument entirely, but there is really no reason to believe that Doom would not have factored into Secret Wars.
Doom wasn’t the villain *going into* the original Secret Wars either, but he did end up as the final boss.
I feel like this point just confirms what I'm saying. In that very same press conference you're talking about, Feige directly says that Kang was the original villain they had and that they switched plans. The clarification that Feige was making was that the pivot away from Kang was already happening before Majors' allegations and conviction, NOT that Kang was never intended to be the central villain of the saga.
What he said was that they began talking about Doom before they let Kang/Majors go. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Kang was just going to be dropped entirely had Majors not been arrested. That could just be that they realized they couldn’t sell these Avengers movies with him alone. So they’d bring in Doom for *Kang Dynasty* as the one who comes out on top, similar to the 84 Secret Wars where Doom doesn’t start out as the main villain but ends up as the final boss.
Why would they announce two Avengers movies to come out within 6 months of each other?
I think the most likely scenario is that Feige always wanted Doom, but other execs at Disney/Marvel wanted Majors for the acclaim he was getting. Both sides get what they want with two Avengers movies coming out back-to-back.
Majors is arrested, Quantumania didn’t even get good reviews—which if it did, the box office might not have mattered that much—so they scrapped Kang entirely and *pivoted* to Doom getting two movies as the big bad instead of one (and the third act of the other).
Furthermore, the MCU basically did Infinity Gauntlet without Adam Warlock.....
But Doom played by somebody interesting seems like its definitely where the Kang stuff was always going. I just thought at the time the twist would be he's played by Majors. But RDJ Doom makes more sense from an emotional standpoint for the characters.
Seems like a chance that they would've wanted you to think Doom would just be another Kang variant before the twist that its not him under the mask.
This is them taking advantage of a situation in the most interesting way possible.
Tony and Victor have similar archetypes. Audiences are familiar with Tony, so they can just use that knowledge as reference to help understand Doom without going super in depth into the character.
RDJ was also in the running to play Doom back in the 00’s. So this is kind of like the ultimate *What If?* casting.
No matter what you do, the fan base is never happy and will call everything you do trash/garbage/slop.
In what universe did you see this? Lmao.
Anyway, Doom wasn't the plan. Anyone who thinks that hadn't paid actual attention, and needs not write elaborate dreams.
Imagine this: The Avengers just finished the Battle of New York, except it was led by a Kang instead of Loki. Either way, a long, hard-fought battle. As the team picks themselves up to go get some schwarma, a portal opens up and out comes another Kang with a robot army. Alright, Round 2 then, except The Avengers are already tired and used up most of their resources. Still, they fight. At their last stand, surrounded by robots and barely managing to stay on their feet, let's say Thor figures out he can supercharge Iron Man, and they manage to sweep the field like Stark and Rhodey did in IM2 against the Hammer drones. Stark's suit is fried, but everyone is alive and Kang is dead. Good job, team. Time to celebrate.
Except a new portal opens up with a different Kang. The Avengers are forced to retreat to Avengers Tower, and maybe Tony has some defenses there to help fend off this *third* army while they all try to rest and recover. Eventually, Kang gains entry, they barely fight him off, and we repeat the cycle a few more times because there is always a Kang ready and waiting to take a turn. Always.
Each new Kang becomes more dangerous than the last for two reasons: 1. He's learning from the mistakes of those who went before him. In his original universe, he may have already defeated a similar set of superheroes and has tech to shut down things they can do. This foreknowledge gives him a huge advantage. 2. Whenever one Kang is defeated, there is another ready to step in, sure that he will be the one to conquer this next universe. The Avengers do not have time to recover. Eventually, they will simply be overrun.
Early humans hunted animals by stalking them to death- persistence hunting. They chased their prey until the animal wasted all of its energy running away only to either die from exhaustion or by not being able to fight back when the hunter finally caught up. That is a prolonged, terrifying way for an animal to die. Death is coming, and you can either stand, fight, and die now or run and be killed later when you are too tired to defend yourself. Kang is basically Jason Vorhees. *That* is how a good Avengers movie would use Kang, imo.