Avengers Doomsday Will Make Or Break The MCU

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Now, you don't need me to tell you that the past few years haven't exactly been kind to the MCU. Last year's offerings ranged from the kind of thing that emerges from the critical doggo's anus after eating an entire chocolate cake to forgettable mid-level slop with all the impact of a left hook for Ariana Grande to barely adequate fluff that once again squandered what should have been a major superhero event movie. I know all of this because I still have a mostly functional brain, but also because every time a new project came out, the standard line from the Shell Access Media was always the same. The MCU is back, baby. You sure about that?

[00:00:41]You sure about that?

[00:00:42]>> All right, cool. Where did it go? Why does it need to come back if it's still doing great and everything is just ticky boo? If my answers frighten you, Vincent, then you should cease asking scary questions.

[00:00:54]>> But there was still one light left at the end of the tunnel. One movie that could undo the brand damage and the box office failures and the creeping apathy of the past 5 years. One last chance to recapture the magic of the Infinity saga and prove that the MCU can still be a money printing juggernaut like it once was. And that movie was Avengers Doomsday. And by George, I'll say one thing for them. They're throwing everything they've got at this one. From the cast lineup that's longer than my list of DUI convictions to the first teasers that perfectly played on the nostalgia of seeing beloved old favorites, not you, coming back for one last adventure and actually being treated with respect and gravitas to the distinct lack of the tedious quippy MCU humor we've all come to know and hate to their recent appearance at Cinema Con over the weekend where they were one of the only major studios to cause an actual stir of excitement. I mean, let's be honest here. Something tells me that Supergirl isn't going to move the needle. Marvel are quite literally betting everything they have left on Avengers Doomsday. They're playing every trick in the book to generate hype for this movie. And as much as the cynic in me says don't get caught up in marketing spin and social media I also can't ignore the growing feeling that they just might do it. After years of shitty TV shows that nobody asked for, narrative bloat, aborted plot lines, forgettable characters, pandering, and endless girl bosses. Maybe somehow Marvel are pulling themselves back together. I mean, that's a big maybe for sure. And it's ignoring the fact that this movie and its antagonist have got zero narrative buildup and no anticipation after the whole Kang thing had to get aborted. Poor old Jonathan Majors just can't seem to catch a break, can he?

[00:02:48]And on the financial side, they've got an uphill battle with this one. Yeah, it'll easily crack a billion dollars.

[00:02:54]And if the planets align and the word of mouth is strong enough, it might even get closer to two by the end of its run.

[00:03:00]But at this point, you have to wonder if even that'll be enough to turn a profit.

[00:03:04]Marvel have made no secret that Doomsday is the most expensive movie they've ever made. And the sums of money being thrown around for this one are mind-boggling. Robert Downey Jr. alone cost a cool hund00 million to come out of MCU retirement in one of the biggest Hollywood deals of all time. The Russo brothers set them back another $80 million to direct Doomsday and Secret Wars. And that's not even counting the rest of the cast, which is extensive.

[00:03:31]The general consensus seems to be that production costs for these two Avengers movies alone is going to be well north of a billion dollars. And that's not even counting the marketing campaign, which I'm guessing is going to put Endgame to shame.

[00:03:45]Wait, that kind of rhymes and it sounds weird. Should we keep it in? it.

[00:03:50]Make no mistake, dear viewer. This is an exercise in raw financial power on a scale we have never seen before. the ultimate expression of the saying, "Go big or go home." I don't think any other studio on Earth could afford to throw around mountains of money quite like this. It literally is a billion dollar gamble. And well, you've got to respect the sheer balls on them if nothing else.

[00:04:13]The obvious downside to spending insane amounts of money like this, though, is that somehow you've got to find a way to make it back again. And if your movie costs upwards of $500 million just to get it in the can, that is a lot of box office revenue just to break even. In fact, if you apply the standard Hollywood formula that I've already covered in previous videos pretty extensively, you're looking at around 1.5 billion globally just to start turning a profit.

[00:04:41]And that's me being conservative and taking every number at face value here. Let's be real. Hollywood studios have a long history of using shady accounting practices to lowball their production budgets. Why? So they can make projects look like stunning successes on paper and soak up all that positive PR in the trades when in reality they've either lost money or barely broken even. But here's the interesting thing about all this. Maybe it doesn't really matter if Doomsday turns a profit.

[00:05:10]>> Are you out of your goddamn mind? I mean, I'm sure Marvel would love it if the film made like $3 billion and became their biggest hit of all time, but that's not really what this film's about. What it's really about is redemption. If I had to take a wild guess here, I'd say that Doomsday and Secret Wars are more like a long-term investment rather than a quick money-making scheme, a way of undoing half a decade of meandering postendame a chance to win back the core audience who used to flock to every new MCU release and prove that there's still creative life left in this franchise.

[00:05:43]And believe me, they'll need every ounce of fan goodwill that they can scrape together because what's coming next will change everything. It's pretty obvious at this point that this is going to be the last harrah for the MCU as we've known it. A full reboot of the entire franchise is coming after Secret Wars. a brave new world, if you will. A world that can't rely on nostalgia, familiar faces, and decades of lingering fan loyalty to make it work anymore. What it really needs is one crucial thing: momentum. And I guess if you have to do something like this, then now is probably the time. Because the sad fact is the MCU is old. It's been around for so long that it's become a generational franchise. The kids who grew up watching Iron Man and Thor go on their first adventures back in the 2000s are parents themselves now and their kids don't have the same attachment to the MCU because they didn't grow up with it. They need a new MCU for their generation. And well, this is how it begins. All this pitch is my way of saying that a whole lot rests on the success of Avengers Doomsday. Not just the future of the MCU, but the future of the whole superhero genre in general. If this movie can't get people excited, then what chance does anything else have? And right now, it really does feel like everything is to play for Doomsday could be either a bloated, overblown disaster or the greatest comeback in movie history. And I honestly don't know what I'd put my money on. But you know what? Despite being a cynical most of the time, I have to admit I'm kind of rooting for this one.

[00:07:16]>> You sure about that?

[00:07:19]>> I know, but what can I say, man? Every good hero story needs a third act redemption arc, and this could well be it. I hope that Marvel have genuinely learned from their failures and mistakes over the past five years. I hope they find a way to make the kind of crowd-pleasing blockbusters that used to get people buzzing about going to the cinema and talking about it for weeks afterwards. And I hope that they're able to give a fitting sendoff to the heroes that defined a whole generation of cinema fans, for better or worse. Maybe I'm just getting caught up in the hype.

[00:07:48]Or maybe I'm just wildly optimistic in my old age. But hey, a man can dream, can't he?

[00:07:55]Anyway, that's all I've got for today.

[00:07:59]Go away now.