Marvel Studios made its triumphant return to San Diego’s Hall H on Saturday afternoon with an hour long panel discussing its next slate of films. I was in attendance with 6,099 other Marvel fans anxiously waiting to hear about and see new content. It has been a couple years since Marvel Studios last graced the Hall H stage in 2022. Their presence at SDCC is always welcomed as no one understands and uses “hype” better than Marvel Studios. They have perfected the use of hype as a tool to promote their movies and more recently, streaming TV shows. Marvel Studios came to the stage around 6pm PST and within one hour successfully managed to tear the roof off of Hall H. Things kicked off with Deadpool & Wolverine where a live choir stood on stage and sang the Madonna hit, “Like A Prayer” to the crowd while various costumed Deadpools danced and pranced around the room. It definitely pumped up the crowd and set the mood for what was come in the next hour. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige made some brief opening remarks about the movie and announced that Deadpool & Wolverine had already earned the highest gross ever for an R rated movie during its opening weekend run. 

Captain America: Brave New World

Feige then transitioned to the new Captain America movie with Anthony Mackie. The entire cast came out to talk about the film in which Sam Wilson who now finally holds the mantle of Captain America has to battle new challenges which includes conflict with President Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross. Anthony Mackie displayed a lot of enthusiasm and good natured playfulness on the stage. The highlight during this section was definitely Harrison Ford making an entrance on stage. The crowd gave the 82 year old star a raucous applause. What struck me the most was when Harrison said he was excited to finally be in the MCU. Ford has played iconic characters throughout his entire 60 year career. He has a resume that most actors can only dream of playing. And it doesn’t seem like Ford is just phoning it in with this role, he genuinely seemed happy to be there on the stage talking about the movie. He even gave Anthony Mackie a tight bro hug when he walked out. I’m excited to see what they do with this new Captain America movie. The footage we saw was especially exciting as we saw Ford transform into the Red Hulk. I’m pumped for this film because I’ve been disappointed with Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk for some time after his appearance in Infinity War. He seems like such a soft character now which is not what I expect for the Incredible Hulk. The footage we saw of Ford’s Red Hulk was terrifying and he will no doubt be a formidable opponent in the MCU moving forward.  

Fantastic Four: 

Next, Feige welcomed us to Marvel’s First Family, The Fantastic Four. At first Feige told us that the cast is over in the UK getting ready to begin production on this film on Tuesday so the film’s Director, Matt Shakman, came out to the stage as the crew’s lone representative. This film will be set in New York City in the 1960s and will contain elements of a futuristic vibe that we haven’t ever seen of New York during that time period before. He showed some incredible pre production footage of the cast in character donning astronaut outfits and few other scenes. It honestly blew me away that they already shot some of that preproduction stuff. The cast seems to have great chemistry from what we saw in the footage. Again, the Marvel hype machine keeps on turning. The clips ended with Galactus falling down into frame peering into what seemed like a window of sorts. He honestly felt larger than life, and I will say this now, when this film comes out on IMAX you’re going to want to grab yourself a ticket because thats the only screen that will be able to capture the sheer enormity of this character. At the end of this panel Feige quickly ushered the cast off the stage after saying that they really are about to fly out to London to begin filming on Tuesday which no one doubts. He said they’ll be able to do that in their car and then, out of nowhere, on the left side of Hall H a futuristic car hovered high in the sky from one end of the room and landed on the other side of the stage. 

Thunderbolts* 

From there things shifted its focus on the upcoming Thunderbolts* movie where the entire star studded cast came on the stage including Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Sebastian Stan for which the room went nuts when he made his appearance at the end of cast introductions. We watched an extended trailer of Florence and few other Thunderbolts in action, seemingly fighting one another in an enclosed space. But the true highlight during this section was when Florence Pugh thanked the crowd for our energy. She said that the feeling she got from being in Hall H four years ago (for Black Widow) stayed with her for an entire year and she said we brought the same energy this past Saturday during the Thunderbolts* section. It was very heartfelt to hear and well received by the audience. 

Avengers films: 

During the final part of Feige’s Marvel Studios presentation he welcomed filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo onto the stage to talk briefly about the upcoming Avengers films. The brothers appeared while walking out to chants from the audience. We watched a short vignette of the Russo’s work in the MCU which opened up with the iconic scene from Captain America: Winter Solider where Steve Rodger’s Captain America is in the elevator with a bunch of hail Hydra guys and whoops everybody’s ass in a matter of minutes. The Russos briefly talked about Avenger’s Secret Wars, which we all knew about awhile ago, but the first Avengers movie that will be a lead in to that movie was unknown until yesterday’s panel… Joe Russo said that there is a character who is critical to Secret Wars that we have not been introduced to yet in the MCU. You could hear murmurs of Dr Doom from the crowd. Then we watched the screen turn to green and that’s when everyone knew that Dr. Doom would finally be making his first appearance in the MCU. Everyone was hype. Masked Dr. Dooms took the stage as the screen changed colors to green. When the title of the movie, Doomsday, was unveiled, people cheered in excitement. However, this would not be the only surprise of this section of the panel. Joe Russo went on to explain that there’s only one actor who can play Dr. Victor Von Doom and with that, the masked Dr. Doom figures split the stage where only one Dr. Doom remained. This Doom’s cloak and mask looked different from the rest of his counterparts. The main Doom stepped forward and unmasked themself to reveal Robert Downey Jr. “New mask, same task,” Downey said on the stage. “What can I tell you? I like playing complicated characters.” The crowd went nuts, we all ate this up even though we were all shocked as hell. Recently Downey made some comments in the media about being open to returning to the MCU which apparently was a little foreshadowing into this moment yesterday in Hall H. 

What stuck with me the most is that there were several other Dr Dooms on the stage with RDJ. Now that I’ve had a day to let the excitement settle in my first thought now is that he has to be joining this movie as a Dr Doom from a different universe. Why else would there be 20 other masked dooms on the stage with him? Marvel studios is good with dropping subtle hints or Easter eggs all throughout their shows and movies. And while I could be wrong here, I do want to go deeper with this idea that RDJ will be from a different universe from the main universe (Earth-616). Sometimes Marvel’s hints are right in the open. Again, this is my speculation but I’m going to lean into it. I don’t believe RDJ is going to be Tony Stark playing Dr Doom. Somehow RDJ’s Dr Doom is going to end up in the Sacred Timeline which is going to throw all of the Avengers for a loop because of his uncanny resemblance to Tony Stark. For many people RDJ is Iron Man and will always be remembered as the character that ushered the MCU into this stratosphere where it had this unbelievable run during its first few phases, amassing billions of dollars at the box office. Fans may have a hard time separating RDJ from Iron Man, a role many believe he was born to play. I think it’s great RDJ is coming back into the fold but I wonder, and I say this respectfully as a creative, if him being back will be a distraction to the overall story they are going to tell with Doomsday. He’s now an Oscar winner and his career couldn’t be hotter. Is he too big for the role? Fortunately, Dr Doom basically lives in a mask so presumably we won’t even see his face that often but we’ll hear some variation of his voice. On that same note about RDJ being an Oscar winner and having a red hot career, I wonder if he’s only signed on to do these two avenger movies in a similar fashion to how Josh Brolin signed on to do Infinity War and Endgame. I can’t imagine that RDJ is signing on to do another ten years of these movies, but I guess we’ll see. I really would’ve loved to have seen Cillian Murphy play Dr Doom because I think he would pull the character off masterfully, but again, is he now also too big to do these movies? I’ve seen split reaction to the news that RDJ is back to play Dr Doom. And as more time passes, I’m seeing more of the negative reactions settling in. Some folks really seem to love that RDJ is coming back while others would’ve hoped for a new actor to come into the fold here. I think both sets of opinions are valid in their own right. And again, it goes back to my comment that perhaps RDJ’s version of Dr Doom is one from a different universe, which can be very fun in this multiverse world Marvel is immersing us in these days. I also wonder if it means Marvel is open to recasting Iron Man with a new actor now that RDJ is no longer tied to that character. RDJ is a bankable Hollywood A-lister who is sure to command a big audience for these Marvel movies going forward. 

What are your thoughts and reactions to this year’s Marvel Studios San Diego Comic Con Hall H appearance?