Doomsday’s first trailer shows that the Russos are sticking with that framework, but instead of pitting the Avengers and the Fantastic Four against some random other universe that audiences aren’t invested in, they’re leveraging nostalgia for the Fox X-Men characters instead. In short, it’s a giant hero-vs.-hero battle with Doom skulking in the background, presumably hatching some Machiavellian scheme.
On paper, it’s a strong concept. But a lot of this will come down to the actual execution. All the fits and starts of this cycle have made it so that getting an audience to care about these stakes is a little harder when the big bad isn’t something that’s been seeded for multiple projects, but instead is being introduced in this film. That’s a big narrative hurdle to clear, but if it’s done well, the stakes could potentially feel much bigger than Infinity War. Lore dump aside, does any of this context get you excited for what’s to come, Frazier?
**Frazier Tharpe: **William, thank you for all this wonderful context. It’s much appreciated and very helpful. I have two words for you though: “Infinity Vision.” In my best Dennis the Beeper King voice, What is it? Who really knows? The fact that Marvel is releasing this movie on an Usher Bucks format to make up for getting absolutely boxed out of IMAX cinemas by Dune 3 on Dec 18th represents this whole Doomsday ordeal in a microcosm: they’re chasing motion that’s no longer quite in their grasp.
This is like the Iceman of movie trailers. It slaps, and then seems a little less impressive the minute you apply any critical thought. Seeing the aughts-era X-Men again felt like a visit from long-lost friends. But this is a trailer so OD’d on nostalgia and cameos designed make Reddit go crazy that they have Channing Tatum Gambit in here, a NeverWas who ended up being a literal joke in Deadpool & Wolverine. It’s time to get serious now, and he’s the last MF to get that across.
Speaking of getting serious, I saw someone on Twitter compare Thor’s speech to Darvin Ham pumping up the Lakers, and now I can’t unhear it.
My last quibble… all that doom-and-gloom talk that’s supposed to raise the stakes? Means absolutely nothing in a trailer that’s spotlighting like four or five people who already died.
WG: Sadly, this is the corner they’ve backed themselves into, so for the most part this is a little bit of what we see is what we get. That also goes for the film’s actual visuals, which look a little shaky despite the Russos shooting most of it on practical sets. I definitely think it’s taken a while to get this trailer out because the team is still working on VFX shots, and that’s even apparent here in moments like Namor flying. Hopefully some of that is ironed out by the time the finished product arrives in December.