First Look at Doctor Doom in Brand-New Trailer Following RDJ's Announcement

After the departure of Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man/Tony Stark and Chris Evans’ Captain America/Steve Rogers from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the franchise has transitioned into a new phase — the Multiverse Saga.

Related: Report: Disney Likely to Scrap Existing Slate Before Robert Downey Jr.’s ‘Avengers’ Return

Despite worries over “superhero fatigue” and the dismissal of Jonathan Majors, who formerly played Kang the Conqueror, Marvel Studios is once again poised to reshape its cinematic landscape.

Following Majors’ exit and Marvel President Kevin Feige’s potential shift from the Multiverse Saga to what could be a Mutant Saga featuring the X-Men, Avengers 5 — once titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and now known as Avengers: Doomsday — is currently in development.

This will lead into Avengers: Secret Wars, which is set to feature Robert Downey Jr. in a new role as the supervillain Victor von Doom/Doctor Doom.

Related: Disney’s Halloween Marvel Release Will Be the Most Queer the Franchise Has Ever Been

It seems Disney is gradually moving away from the original Avengers lineup in the MCU, relying more on Sony’s Spider-Man and 20th Century Fox’s (now 20th Century Studios) X-Men characters, as seen in the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine (2024).

Not all hope is lost for Marvel’s familiar faces, though — as Disney appears to be leaning full-tilt into bringing the next Avengers to the forefront of the public’s minds.

Disney Will Recreate Finding Nemo Effect

How will Disney retread the Pixar Animation Studio release Finding Nemo (2003)? Well, in its marketing of its new Avengers film, of course!

Back in 2003, before the Finding Nemo film was released, former Senior Vice President Andrea Taylor at The Walt Disney Company’s Disney Channel shared (via Defunctland) that when she worked with the company, she worked on “synergy programming” — making sure that the worlds of Disney were integrated through marketing —  promoting “Fishy Facts” to kids and getting people interested in and thinking about marine creature a whole year and a half before Nemo dropped.

Now, it seems like Marvel Studios is planning a similar marketing strategy, where the character of Doctor Doom is being pushed at younger audiences and explicitly connected with the idea of the Multiverse and cross-universal combat.

Apart from the upcoming team hero shooter Marvel Rivals promoting a Victor von Doom-heavy plot and storyline with iterations of the character from both the past and future starting a Multiversal War, it seems like the next logical step for Marvel Studios is also simultaneously pushing a new Fortnite x Marvel collab where Doctor Doom will join the Gen Z favorite multi-player battle royale shooter, Fortnite.

The new Fortnite collaboration shows the “Day of Doom” event taking place, where Marvel heroes (similar to Marvel Rivals) are brought to the Fortnite realm to fight during this “Day of Doom”. Check out the collab trailer on YouTube:

With these moves, Marvel is clearly trying to sell Doctor Doom as a “Multiversal villain” to the general public ahead of The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Avengers: Doomsday.

Are you excited to see Avengers: Doomsday bringing Doctor Doom to the forefront?