Marvel Studios took to one of the most unique and interesting marketing tactics to promote the cast of the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. The film was already thought to have a massive cast. Much bigger than that of the already record-breaking Avengers: Endgame. So what did Marvel Studios do? Did they send out a press release? Did they give the information piecemeal out to outlets like Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, or Deadline? No. They did not. Did they do a huge reveal at an event like San Diego Comic-Con or D23? Absolutely not.
They showed off director’s chairs with the name of the cast member on the back and took their sweet ass time doing it. I’m not sure exactly the measure of time between each reveal, but it ranged from eternity to the death of time. One by one, they went down a line of chairs. It seemed like they were just doing the normal names that anyone could really guess would be in the movie, Chris Hemsworth, Vanessa Kirby, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Paul Rudd, Letitia Wright, you know, the Avengers. Well from there it went a bit wilder with fan-favorite characters/actors like Wyatt Russell, Tenoch Huerta Mejia, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Simu Liu, Florence Pugh, Lewis Pullman, and then we got some major surprises like Kelsey Grammer and Tom HIddleston.
From there, people who are fans of the original X-Men movies might have a heart attack, rapid fire, it was Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Alan Cumming, Rebecca Romijn, James Marsden, and Channing Tatum. They saved what looks like the two most important cast members of the film for last. Pedro Pascal as Mr. Fantastic and of course Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom.
Was It A Waste Of 5 Hours To Watch This Whole Thing?
The Marvel machine works in mysterious ways. There is no other company in movies right now that could have pulled off a stunt like this. Would a press release have had millions of people watching along live to ambient sounds of a soundstage and then some short musical cues, before a camera pans over to another chair? There’s no way. It was a gamble to show off the cast of what is likely the biggest film in human history (up to this point and then will likely be second when Avengers: Secret Wars releases) in a whole five plus hour stunt.
But if you go check X/Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms, it was all people could talk about. There were memes, other fandoms got into the fun of posting a chair with a name on the back of it. The parodies of this will be legendary. Who knows what other marketing teams can do with this now?
The simple fact is that Avengers: Doomsday is a turning point for Marvel Studios. People have clamored that there is no direction, there isn’t some big thing we’re moving toward. Well, now there is. Marvel has weaponized nostalgia for its own product with this announcement, bringing back classic roles like Magneto, Professor X, Nightcrawler, Loki, and others for this film.
For someone who knows a good bit about the behind-the-scenes inner workings of casting at Marvel Studios, there were still surprises here. For someone who isn’t a jaded, chronically online commenter, this must’ve felt like Christmas morning.
Who Wasn’t Announced Might Be The Bigger Thing
There were a choice few characters/performers who WEREN’T announced for this project like Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Holland, Oscar Isaac, Brie Larson, Iman Vellani, Mark Ruffalo, Hailee Steinfeld, or Jeremy Renner. There’s even more outside of that, but there are still some MCU heavy hitters who aren’t on this cast list. That might be the bigger story coming out of it. Like the people whining online that ThunderBolts* is now spoiled for them (no it isn’t), or that this was a waste of time (no it wasn’t, you watched it with me), there’s always going to be detractors of what Marvel does. But this stunt proves that they still have that magic, even using it to make millions of people watch a room full of chairs.
Avengers: Doomsday is now in production.
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