The third teaser for “Avengers: Doomsday” is out, and it’s all about the X-Men.
The biggest surprise from the “Avengers: Doomsday” casting announcements was the return of some old-school “X-Men” stars. We’re not exactly sure what the plan is for these characters, but they will clearly not be cameo appearances, and it certainly makes for buzzy stunt casting.
The mutant cast in ‘Doomsday’ includes Patrick Stewart (Charles Xavier) — who was killed off three times already, in “X-Men: The Last Stand,” “Logan” and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” appears to be back. Will he be killed off for a fourth time?
Ian McKellen, who was last seen as Magneto in “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” will be returning as well. He’s also supposed to be back as Gandalf in Andy Serkis’ upcoming “Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.” McKellen, who was recently injured falling off a stage during a London performance, is 86 years old.
Kelsey Grammer will also reprise his X-Men role as Beast. Grammer’s character has appeared in “X-Men: The Last Stand (2006),” “X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014),” and made a cameo in the post-credits scene of “The Marvels.”
The rest of the returnees include Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler — a highlight from “X2”; James Marsden as Cyclops; Channing Tatum, who played Gambit in “Deadpool & Wolverine”; and Rebecca Romijn as Mystique. Where’s Hugh Jackman? Maybe he’ll cameo, but he hasn’t been officially announced.
There have been a lot of bad ‘X-Men’ movies: “X-Men: The Last Stand” (‘06), “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” (‘09), “X-Men: Apocalypse” (‘16), “Dark Phoenix” (‘19), “The New Mutants” (‘20) … Fox has been milking this franchise for a few decades now. In March 2019, Marvel Studios got back the film rights to X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Deadpool after Disney acquired Fox for $71.3 billion.
As far as the consensus goes, there have been five good X-Men movies released in the last 25 years: “X-Men” ‘(00), “X2” (‘02), “X-Men: First Class” (‘11), “X-Men: Days of Future Past” (‘14) and “Logan” (‘17) — otherwise, this franchise had its day, which is why Feige believes it’s a good idea to reboot the entire thing. But before he does that, he’s going to be bringing the old gang back for one last hurrah in ‘Doomsday.’
The sequel will arrive more than 20 years after the original and nearly two decades after “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” with Turteltaub returning to direct.