‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Faces Huge Edit as Marvel Removes Nearly 20% of Film
Marvel’s next Avengers movie is getting closer to theaters, but it sounds like it’s currently nowhere near screen-ready.
Avengers: Doomsday is arguably Marvel Studios’ biggest cinematic event since Avengers: Endgame (2019). Joe and Anthony Russo are back behind the camera, while Robert Downey Jr. returns to the MCU in a dramatically different role as Victor von Doom.
The movie also pulls together characters from several corners of Marvel’s multiverse. Disney says heroes from three distinct universes will collide, with the Avengers, Fantastic Four, New Avengers, and veteran X-Men characters all represented in the enormous ensemble.
That much material may be forcing Marvel to make some difficult decisions in the editing room.
Marvel Reportedly Wants a Much Shorter Cut
Avengers: Doomsday reportedly had an early cut running around three hours and 30 minutes. The theatrical version is now said to be targeting approximately two hours and 50 minutes — a difference of about 40 minutes.
If both reported runtimes are accurate, Marvel would be removing roughly 19% of the original cut. That puts the reduction just shy of one-fifth of the movie’s initial reported length.
A 170-minute final runtime would hardly make Doomsday short. Avengers: Endgame ran just over three hours, while Avengers: Infinity War came in at roughly two and a half hours.
The difference is that Doomsday has an especially crowded roster to service.
Chris Evans (Steve Rogers/Captain America) returns alongside Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson/Captain America), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova/Black Widow), Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm/Invisible Woman), Patrick Stewart (Charles Xavier/Professor X), and Ian McKellen (Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto).
Other confirmed cast members include Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Paul Rudd (Scott Lang/Ant-Man), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier), Letitia Wright (Shuri/Black Panther), Simu Liu (Shang-Chi), Channing Tatum (Gambit), James Marsden (Scott Summers/Cyclops), and Kelsey Grammer (Hank McCoy/Beast).
That creates an obvious editing challenge: give the returning stars meaningful material without allowing the movie to become unwieldy.
Early assembly cuts are routinely longer than finished movies, so a 40-minute reduction is not automatically evidence of trouble. Such cuts can contain alternate takes, extended scenes, unfinished sequences, and material filmmakers never intended to keep in the theatrical version.
Still, losing nearly one-fifth of a reported assembly cut is a substantial change — particularly this close to release.
‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Is Still Reshooting
The editing work is unfolding while additional photography reportedly continues.
Industry insider Daniel Richtman reported in late August that Avengers: Doomsday was still undergoing reshoots. He also claimed principal photography on Avengers: Secret Wars is expected to begin at the end of September, potentially putting work on the two Avengers movies in close proximity.
Marvel Studios has not publicly detailed the scale of the Doomsday reshoots or confirmed the reported early and targeted runtimes.
Reshoots themselves are standard practice for major studio films and have long been common on MCU projects. For Doomsday, however, their timing is drawing attention because the movie is now less than four months away from release.
The production has already undergone a much bigger transformation before cameras even rolled.
Marvel originally announced its fifth Avengers movie as Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. The studio later abandoned that title and direction, bringing back the Russo brothers and revealing Downey as Doctor Doom at San Diego Comic-Con in 2024.
That decision immediately made Doomsday one of Marvel’s most closely watched projects. Downey spent more than a decade playing Tony Stark/Iron Man, whose story ended with his death in Avengers: Endgame.
Marvel is also leaning into that history ahead of Doomsday. Avengers: Endgame is returning to theaters in September 2026 as Avengers Endgame: Encore, containing additional material connected to the upcoming film.
Whatever is removed from Doomsday, Marvel does not have much room left on the calendar. Disney still lists Avengers: Doomsday for an exclusive theatrical release on December 18, 2026.
Avengers: Secret Wars is scheduled to follow on December 17, 2027, meaning the final version of Doomsday will also need to leave Marvel’s next massive crossover somewhere to begin.
What are your top predictions for Avengers: Doomsday?
