Marvel's Avengers: Doomsday trailer hit 47 million views in 4 hours. RDJ plays Doctor Doom — not a Stark variant — and Kevin Feige says the film is six weeks out.
The second trailer for Avengers: Doomsday landed at 11 p.m. Sunday, dropped without warning directly onto Marvel's YouTube channel, and cleared 47 million views before most Americans woke up Monday morning. That number is not a record — the Avengers: Endgame trailer holds that distinction — but it is a number that tells you something about how much oxygen this film is consuming with six weeks still to go before release.
Robert Downey Jr. is in the trailer for approximately 40 seconds. He says six words. He does not appear to be playing Tony Stark.
This is the entire point, and it is a distinction that the internet has been either understanding or badly missing since Downey's return was announced at San Diego Comic-Con in 2024. The character he plays is Viktor von Doom — Doctor Doom — a villain with no biographical overlap with Iron Man other than the face of the actor portraying him. Kevin Feige has been consistent: "He is not Tony Stark with a mask. He is someone who has never heard of Tony Stark." In the trailer, Downey carries himself with a physical stillness that is notably different from every Iron Man performance. No charm, no deflection, no quip queued up. It's genuinely unsettling, which is presumably the idea.
“Kevin Feige has been consistent: "He is not Tony Stark with a mask.”
What the trailer actually shows is this: a multiverse convergence event that has pulled characters from across the MCU's recent timeline into a single conflict. The new Avengers roster — Sam Wilson's Captain America (Anthony Mackie), Thor (Chris Hemsworth in what multiple outlets have confirmed is his final MCU appearance), Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), and a briefly glimpsed Shang-Chi — are assembled not by Nick Fury but by Bruce Banner, who appears to have developed a new form of hybrid physiology that the film has not yet explained publicly.
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The Russo Brothers returning to direct a Marvel film is both familiar and overdue. After Infinity War and Endgame, Anthony and Joe Russo spent five years on projects outside the MCU, none of which defined their post-Marvel identity the way their superhero work had. Coming back for Doomsday is pragmatic for them and valuable for Marvel, which has been working to recapture the tonal consistency that made the Infinity Saga land and has not entirely managed it in the years since Endgame.
The surprising thing about this film's marketing — and this is genuinely counterintuitive — is how thoroughly it has avoided the fan-service nostalgia button-pushing that defined several recent MCU campaigns. There is no Downey in an Iron Man suit, no moment engineered to produce the "we're all going to cry at this" clip, no cameo tease calibrated to produce audience shrieks. The trailer presents Doctor Doom as a coherent ideological antagonist who believes he is right. Whether that holds over 2 hours and 37 minutes — the runtime was confirmed via IMAX booking systems on Friday — is a different question.
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Box office tracking currently places Doomsday's opening weekend in the $280–$310 million domestic range. That would put it between Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avengers: Infinity War on the domestic all-time charts. The more consequential number is global. Disney reportedly secured a confirmed Chinese theatrical release last fall — something that was not available for several recent MCU entries — which adds a potential $120–$150 million to the projection. The two combined create a scenario where Doomsday could realistically challenge Endgame's $357 million opening weekend if the reaction from opening-night audiences drives strong word-of-mouth.
The film is the first installment of a planned two-part conclusion. Avengers: Secret Wars is scheduled for May 2027. Feige confirmed both films were developed and shot back-to-back, the same production model used for Infinity War and Endgame, which is both logistically efficient and a signal that the studio has real confidence in where the story ends.
One detail from the trailer that landed differently than expected: the final shot is not Doom, not the assembled heroes, not a city in ruins. It's a single image of the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building in New York, intact and lit, with the number 4 visible on the tower. The implication is either that the Fantastic Four will have a significant role, or that Marvel is teasing their integration into the post-Doomsday universe. Probably both.
Who does Robert Downey Jr. play in Avengers: Doomsday?
Robert Downey Jr. plays Viktor von Doom, known as Doctor Doom — not a variant of Tony Stark. Doom is a Fantastic Four villain and is presented in the film as an entirely separate character from Iron Man with no connection to the Stark storyline.
When does Avengers: Doomsday come out?
Avengers: Doomsday releases in theaters on May 2, 2026. A sequel, Avengers: Secret Wars, is scheduled for May 2027.
Are the Russo Brothers directing Avengers: Doomsday?
Yes. Anthony and Joe Russo, who directed Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, returned to Marvel for Doomsday and Secret Wars. Both films were developed and shot back-to-back.
