‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Directors Claim New Teasers Aren’t Actually Teasers or Trailers: “Pay Attention”
Marvel Studios released the fourth, and potentially final Avengers: Doomsday teaser trailer…but according to the Russo brothers, these are not actually teasers. Over the course of the month, playing during screenings of Avatar: Fire and Ash and later uploaded the following Tuesday, Marvel Studios has released four teaser trailers for Avengers: Doomsday, all teasing the return of a favorite character. The first trailer showed Chris Evans as Steve Rodgers, with teaser two centered on Chris Hemsworth’s Thor. The third teaser trailer was X-Men-centric, while the fourth and final one showcased the Wakandans, Namor, and Ben Grimm / The Thing of The Fantastic Four.
Yet the Russo brothers took to Instagram to reveal a new detail. Sharing the fourth Avengers: Doomsday teaser, the caption reads, “What you’ve been watching for the last four weeks… are not teasers. Or trailers. They are stories. They are clues…Pay attention. #DoomsdayHasBegun”
The Countdown is the Key
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
The Russo brothers saying “these are not teasers or trailers” might lead some to believe these scenes are not in the actual movie. They might be shot specifically for trailers that serve as prologues to the events of Avengers: Doomsday, similar to how the post-credit scene for Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a prologue for Avengers: Age of Ultron, or how Captain Marvel’s presence in Avengers: Endgame is explained in the post-credit scene for her film. Now that theory might be true for some of these moments, particularly the post-credit scenes of Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which were essentially the first teaser trailers for Doomsday, but it could not be all of them, as The Fantastic Four meeting both the Wakandans and Namor will likely have to be part of the movie since that will be too big a scene to gloss over.
The Russo brothers might be using a bit of hyperbole. Obviously, these are teaser trailers, but the specifics of them and why they were chosen might weave together a larger story at play. There are a few recurring themes across the four trailers. There is a great deal of emphasis put on children, with the first two trailers spotlighting Captain America and Thor’s children, with many theorizing that Cyclops is fighting to save either his son, Nate Grey, or Rachel Summers, while The Fantastic Four have traveled to the MCU to save Franklin Richard. This might suggest that Doctor Doom is after superpowered children.
Another recurring theme across the four trailers is the idea of death and destruction. Doomsday‘s subtitle appears not only to be a reference to Doctor Doom, but also to be the end of the world(s). Magneto’s trailer line, “Death comes for us all. The question is not are you prepared to die, but who will you be when you close your eyes,” and Shuri’s “A king has his duties. To prepare our people for the afterlife,” suggest that the end is inevitable. This is a battle the heroes cannot win, as witnessed by Cyclops giving his last stand in the ruins of the Xavier Mansion. The countdown clock to Avengers: Doomsday is not just for the film’s release, but also to the end as fans know it and the beginning of something new for the MCU, which will start in Avengers: Secret Wars.
