Marvel Bringing Back Your Favorite X-Men To Get You To Watch ‘Avengers: Doomsday'

There’s been a lot of talk these last few days over what is and isn’t causing a new Disney remake to tank at the box office. Some bad-faith folks have tried to argue that Rachel Zegler is to blame for Snow White’s poor performance at the box office because she dares speak her mind about what’s happening in Gaza. It’s a dumb take. Saying the movie failed because audiences are tired of seeing beloved animated movies being remade in terrifying live-action that’s often laden with atrocious CGI? That sounds more like it, and honestly, the regurgitation of ideas doesn’t only affect animated remakes.

Marvel movies are also losing the undeniable appeal they once held. We’ve yet to see if new ventures like Fantastic Four First Steps will reignite people’s love of the franchise, but anything that isn’t full of cameos hasn’t hit as hard with audiences. The response to Captain America Brave New World has been tepid at best. But people lost their freaking minds over Deadpool Ampersand Wolverine, which brought out a bunch of former Marvel FOX stars to team up with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. Hell, the end credits even featured a behind-the-scenes video that felt like an in-memorium to the once popular franchise of films. But let’s not be too hasty…

Disney saw how hard people’s nips got from seeing that FOX universe revived. They freaked out over everyone… freaking out over Channing Tatum’s Gambit. And look, they needed to stack the deck in this film to make everyone act like it’s 2018/2019 again. So, they are bringing a bunch of Avengers back for Avengers: Doomsday. Simu Liu, Chris Hemsworth, and Tom Hiddleston will appear in the film. The new cast of Fantastic Four First Steps will go toe-to-toe with Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom. But that’s not all!

Avengers: Doomsday will see the return of original X-Men castmembers Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart, Kelsey Grammar, Rebecca Romijn, James freaking Marsden, and Alan Cumming (the latter of whom Dustin had to be reminded was in X2, so please feel free to shame him). Channing Tatum will also be reprising his take on Gambit, though, whether it will be the same comedic version is yet to be seen. That’s a whole lot of freaking X-Men added to an already-stacked cast! Here’s a breakdown of the actors and their characters from Discussing Film in case you, like Dustin, needed to be reminded for some reason.

Every X-Men star in ‘AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY’:

Ian McKellen as Magneto
Kelsey Grammar as Beast
James Marsden as Cyclops
Channing Tatum as Gambit
Rebecca Romijn as Mystique
Patrick Stewart as Professor X
Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler

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— DiscussingFilm (@discussingfilm.bsky.social) March 26, 2025 at 5:09 PM

These names were all revealed during a giant livestream Marvel hosted to announce the cast. They also say there are more names to be revealed. Notably absent from this initial list are people like Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds, but that doesn’t mean they won’t appear in the movie. We’ve also yet to see any announcements on the Spider-Man side of things, but it’s safe to say we will see a wallcrawler or two. The company will have to save some surprises for Secret Wars as well. All we know for now is that these movies are going to be hella expensive.

Now, as a treat for us all, here’s a clip of Alan Cumming from X2: X-Men United (you know the one). He played Nightcrawler, and he played him well. He played him so well, in fact, that he made an already fan-favorite character even more popular, and people were bummed he didn’t return in any further installments. I’ll take it a step further and say there was outrage we did not see this kind, blue, German mutant ever again. The man left an indelible mark on comic book films that has been appreciated for decades by all — unless your name is Dustin Rowles.