There’s been plenty of reporting about how Joe and Anthony Russo were shooting “Avengers: Doomsday” without a completed or even half-finished script. Here is a recent quote, and testimony, from actor Sebastian Stan:
We didn’t have a script. We were just shooting scattered scenes. It’s a different way of working, continuous, constantly evolving.
Yes, ‘Doomsday’ was shot without a finalized script. It was being written as production rolled on. The screenplay was still under development on set, with daily rewrites and updates in progress. The full cast was not even locked. How does that work exactly?
Marvel boss Kevin Feige described this as part of Marvel’s “creative process,” referring to the ongoing script as “plus-ing,” which is “happening every day,” and affirming that rewriting during filming has been a regular feature of their production model.
In a new interview with the AP, the Russo brothers defended this approach, comparing the ever-evolving script to a “living organism.”
We’re improvisation-based, rehearsal-based directors. We like to see what the actors bring to the characters, and sometimes you don’t get the actors until a few days or a few weeks before you shoot them. And a lot of the time, that’s when the magic happens.
Oh yes, that’s why there was no script: to create movie magic. If you remember, back in July 2025, while production on ‘Doomsday’ was taking place, Rebecca Romijn admitted that the script still wasn’t finished and that she wasn’t even sure whether she had finished filming her scenes.
So, it’s basically reckless, expensive “make it up as you go” filmmaking? ‘Doomsday’ is an enormous ensemble production with a huge budget ($400M), complicated VFX, multiple established characters, and major crossover elements. Flexibility that works on a smaller movie becomes much riskier here; changing a scene can require expensive reshoots, visual-effects revisions, and coordination among huge numbers of actors and crew.
There are some who still trust the Russos will deliver on ‘Doomsday’ because of their four successful MCU movies. That said, their post-‘Endgame’ movies—“Cherry,” “The Gray Man,” and “The Electric State”—were poorly received.
“Avengers: Doomsday” releases December 18, 2027. Reshoots (are we surprised?) are supposed to take place very soon and will be immediately followed by the start of production on “Avengers: Secret Wars.”
Yes, ‘Doomsday’ was shot without a finalized script. It was being written as production rolled on. The screenplay was still under development on set, with daily rewrites and updates in progress.