Doctor Doom's latest recruit has fans fearing the worst for the Avengers in Doomsday.

Spoilers for the VisionQuest post-credits scenes follow.

With Vision's story wrapped up and a family reunion on the cards, you could have been forgiven for thinking VisionQuest had a happy ending. The post-credits put paid to that notion, with the reveal that Doctor Doom has revived Scarlet Witch after her death in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and claimed her power for himself.

"If she joins Doctor Doom then all the Avengers are cooked," one fan wrote on Twitter, echoing a community that suddenly feels like Robert Downey Jr.'s supervillain will have a one-sided conquest.

On Reddit, others felt the upcoming battle would be similarly unfair. They joked, "What is Thor gonna do with Ant-Man, 3 [Captain Americas], Falcon & Gambit against Doom's roster."

Another made a pointed reference to everything the Avengers will have to go up against in Doomsday, including Scarlet Witch, Hulk, the as-yet-unnamed Latverian Witches, and Doom himself.

In case you had forgotten, Avengers: Endgame Encore's post-credits scene features Hulk – in isolation after his rampage in Spider-Man: Brand New Day – being collected by Doom. That, when coupled with Scarlet Witch's resurrection, already makes for dour reading for our Avengers.

Then there's Boris: the masked character has been spotted beside Doctor Doom in a curious piece of concept art, and his role lines up with Doctor Strange acting as Doom's right-hand man in the Secret Wars comic on which this is based.

If one all-powerful magic user wasn't bad enough, Doom could also have the ex-Sorcerer Supreme for company. My message to Earth's Mightiest Heroes: good luck with that.

Avengers: Doomsday hits UK cinemas on December 16 and US theatres on December 18.

For those wanting to dive deeper into MCU history, we have the complete Marvel timeline. There's also a look ahead to the upcoming Marvel movies we have coming your way post-Doomsday.

Anthony Mackie may have just dropped a big Avengers: Doomsday spoiler. Speaking in a new interview, the actor was asked about facing off against Robert Downey Jr. in the upcoming movie.

He replied that he didn't actually fight Downey Jr. on set, but there were several other stars he spent time with. Notably, he mentions hanging out with Paul Bettany, who plays Vision, and hasn't been officially announced as part of the cast by the Russo brothers.

"It was dope, you know, these movies, they're like summer camp," Mackie told Entertainment Tonight. "You know everybody comes together and it's like, 'Oh how have you been? Oh you have a kid now? Oh wow, you're married now.' It's one of those things where you just catch up with everybody. I got to hang out with, you know, Paul Bettany, who I love. And I met Simu, who's great. We quickly became friends and mortal enemies, so it was a wonderful time."

There's a caveat here that Mackie may have just bumped into Bettany on set because VisionQuest was filming on the same lot. However, there's no indication that's what he's referencing here, as he does seem to be speaking about the cast of Doomsday. It seems like we'll just have to wait and see.

Now here's your spoiler warning as we're about to get into details from the VisionQuest finale ending and post-credits scenes.

At end of VisionQuest episode 8, it's revealed that Wanda Maximoff is returning. We see the moment she buried herself in Mount Wundagore at the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness before a masked figure comes to wake her up. It's none other than Doctor Doom, who brings her back to life and says, "Scarlet Witch, awaken....your power will be mine".

This makes the potential of Vision also starring in Avengers: Doomsday very exciting, as we might finally get a reunion with the characters. Given that VisionQuest also brought together their two sons as well, could a family reunion be on the cards? Let's hope.

For more on the MCU, check out our guides to upcoming Marvel movies and shows as well as how to watch the Marvel movies in order.

A new billboard for Avengers: Doomsday might have spoiled a major detail about Thor's powers in the movie.

On the billboard, which you can see below, Thor is shown wielding yellow lightning. Usually, his lightning powers are a distinctive blue, which can be seen around Mjolnir on the billboard, which Steve Rogers is wielding.

But, some Marvel fans think the billboard means Thor is going to be using the Odinforce in the film. Odinforce is yellow, and it's an extremely powerful ability that would make Thor pretty much unstoppable, if he truly is wielding it. But, it comes with a caveat: if it gets used too much, it triggers the Odinsleep. So, here's hoping Thor doesn't end up needing a nap on the battlefield.

"I just don't get why they'd put a massive spoiler for Thor," says one fan on Twitter, with another saying: "Odin force right in my face lmao"

However, considering it's featured on a billboard, it's unlikely that the Odinforce would be a dramatic reveal in the movie. Trailers so far have only shown Thor using his traditional blue lightning – but the yellow lightning has also featured as part of an action figure and on a poster, though it seemed to fly under the radar then.

Alongside Chris Hemsworth's Thor, the Avengers: Doomsday cast includes Anthony Mackie's Captain America, Chris Evans's Steve Rogers, Letitia Wright's Shuri, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Thunderbolts, and, of course, Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom.

Avengers: Doomsday arrives this December 18 in the US, and on December 16 in the UK. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the upcoming Marvel movies and TV shows for everything else that's on the way.

After four years, James Gunn is stepping down as DC Studios co-CEO alongside Peter Safran, but Marvel fans are taking this as a win, as many want the Guardians of the Galaxy director to come back to the MCU.

"Kevin Feige, it's time to bring James Gunn back into the fold," said one fan on Reddit just hours after the news broke. Others seem to agree, as another added, "The people acting like Gunn is awful and don’t want him returning to Marvel are fucking crazy. All three Guardians of the Galaxy movies are great, and he was a great second or third unit director to have on hand for the bigger projects. You’d be crazy to not welcome him back. He has still done cosmic Marvel the best when it comes to the movies."

One fan on Twitter let Gunn know exactly what he should do next, writing, "start drafting the script for Guardians of the Galaxy 4." Another said, "James Gunn no longer DC head means Guardians of the Galaxy 4 confirmed at Marvel?" Let's go."

Gunn started working with Marvel in 2012 when he was hired to co-write and direct the first Guardians of the Galaxy, which was released in 2014. The filmmaker went on to direct scenes in Doctor Strange and wrote and directed the second Guardians movie. However, just as he was slated to direct the third movie, Disney fired Gunn from Marvel Studios in 2018 due to resurfaced social media posts.

Gunn was rehired by Marvel in 2019 and later directed Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3. But he slowly made the jump to DC, writing and directing the 2021 movie The Suicide Squad and then the HBO show Peacemaker. Then in 2022, Gunn was made co-CEO of DC Studios alongside his long-term collaborator Safran. However, with Gunn now stepping down as DC boss, perhaps the filmmaker will jump ship again.

The DC shake-up comes after Skydance acquired Warner Bros. earlier this year. Gunn and Safran will be replaced by former Marvel Studios executive Jeremy Latcham on December 1, 2026. In a statement posted on Instagram, Gunn said he feels relieved and that he "disliked the at-times corporate nature of the job" and had "difficulty" with "dividing my time between projects" and his role as CEO.

Gunn only launched the DCU: Chapter One with Superman last year. Though reports suggest that the DCU will be dismantled, it looks like projects that are currently in the works will still go forward, including Man of Tomorrow, The People v. Gorilla Grodd, and Creature Commandos season 2.

For more, check out our guide on how to watch the DC movies in order, and keep up with upcoming DC movies and shows announced before Gunn's departure.

It looks like it's out with the old and in with the new at DC, as Skydance (the name of the newly merged Paramount and Warner Bros.) is reportedly set to scrap the James Gunn and Peter Safran-built DCU.

News broke yesterday that Gunn and Safran were out as co-CEOs of DC Studios, and as Hollywood digests the fallout, new details are emerging.

According to reliable former The Hollywood Reporter journalist Matt Belloni's What I'm Hearing newsletter, the DCU as we know it might be over. He writes: "I'm told plans are already afoot to dismantle much of what Gunn and Safran had plotted out beyond next summer's Gunn-directed Man of Tomorrow, the currently shooting The Batman: Part 2, and an in-the-works HBO series. So DC goes back into reboot mode… again."

A separate report from The Hollywood Reporter says Gunn was working on a script for a third Superman film, with a plan for a new Superman movie every two years, potentially leading to the Justice League.

"There have been so many highs along the way: releasing Superman and Clayface, making Peacemaker, reading the scripts to The People Vs., the entire process of Man of Tomorrow, which thus far has been the best filmmaking experience of my life, and numerous other moments," Gunn shared on his Instagram in a lengthy statement about his time as co-CEO of DC Studios.

Elsewhere in the statement, he wrote: "So, yes, I will miss the people around me, and I will miss being the co-caretaker of these great characters, but I'm also incredibly relieved and excited to get back to pure filmmaking. That's not to say Peter and I are immediately done with DC or superheroes. We have Man of Tomorrow out this summer. And we've just been engaged on another DC project which I'm writing, and we'll see where it goes after that. And of course, the characters we set up will live on."

At the moment, it's not clear what, if any, of the DCU Chapter One: Gods and Monsters slate will get made after Man of Tomorrow. We'll just have to wait and see.

Next up for DC is Man of Tomorrow, which arrives on July 9, 2027. You can keep track of what's coming this year with our guide to all the upcoming movies worth getting excited about.

Incoming DC Studios boss Jeremy Latcham once revealed his surprising "guiding light" whilst producing Iron Man over at Marvel.

In an interview earlier this year with Christian Broadcasting News, Latcham recalled, "When we were making the first Marvel movies I would always be like, 'I don't know if my grandma would like that.' That became a guiding light… it became the stand-in for 'is this going to work for regular people outside the bubble of Hollywood?'

Since then, Latcham has been drafted in to head up the DC universe at Skydance, replacing the outgoing co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran.

At Marvel, Latcham produced the likes of The Avengers and Spider-Man: Homecoming and worked extensively under Kevin Feige – so his family-friendly outlook is something that clearly paid dividends.

That mantra is something Latcham, former senior vice president of production and development at Marvel Studios, also mentioned years prior in an interview with GamesRadar+.

"In the old Marvel days, there's this great story about my Meemaw and Peepaw because they became, like, a joke in the editing room - that we were making the movie for my grandparents in Oklahoma," Latcham said at the time of Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' home release.

"If they weren't gonna understand it, [it was] never going to work for anybody… I think that's kind of the fun of these movies, of adapting material - finding a way to make it for everybody. You have to be true to the fans, but you have to make it ultimately for everybody."

Upon his departure, Gunn admitted in a social media statement that he was "relieved" to get back to filmmaking and "disliked the at-times corporate nature of the job."

While DC is in flux, get the latest on one of the current slate's guarantees: Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow. Then, discover how to watch the DC movies in order – for those following along with either the DCEU or James Gunn's DCU.

James Gunn and Peter Safran's exit at DC Studios was reportedly a surprise as the pair were already working on future projects. Aside from the upcoming Man of Tomorrow, which has wrapped filming, plans were already in motions for a third Superman movie and an upcoming Justice League team-up.

According to a new report in The Hollywood Reporter, Gunn "was in the midst of writing a third installment as part of plan to make a trilogy and release a Superman movie every two years, maybe even morphing the franchise into a Justice League teamup."

This was corroborated by another report from the Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Fritz, who wrote on Twitter that loose release dates were already pencilled in for these movies too. "Gunn + Safran are debuting Wonder Woman in Man of Tomorrow, hoped to intro the DCU Batman in The Brave and the Bold in 2028, and were aiming for Gunn-directed Superman sequels that low-key evolved into Justice League in 2029 and 2031. Now...?," he wrote on social media.

It seems that Gunn and Safran had plans for the DCU stretching into the 2030s. Under the new leadership from former Marvel executive Jeremy Latcham, it's not clear if any of these movies will still go ahead.

In a lengthy statement from Gunn, he did reference a future project he was working on. "We've just been engaged on another DC project which I'm writing, and we'll see where it goes after that," he wrote on Instagram. "And, of course, the characters we set up will live on."

For more, check out our guide to upcoming DC movie and shows, as well as our breakdown of Gunn's plan for DCU Chapter One.

James Gunn has released a separate, lengthy statement amid the news that he and co-CEO Peter Safran are no longer the heads of DC Studios.

"There have been so many highs along the way: releasing Superman and Clayface, making Peacemaker, reading the scripts to The People Vs., the entire process of Man of Tomorrow, which thus far has been the best filmmaking experience of my life, and numerous other moments," Gunn wrote on his personal Instagram account.

Gunn also lamented that he "disliked the at-times corporate nature of the job" and had the "most difficulty" with "dividing my time between projects I’m incredibly passionate about and the ones I’m not so much and all the things I have to do as a studio head."

"So, yes, I will miss the people around me, and I will miss being the co-caretaker of these great characters, but I'm also incredibly relieved and excited to get back to pure filmmaking. That's not to say Peter and I are immediately done with DC or superheroes. We have Man of Tomorrow out this summer. And we've just been engaged on another DC project which I'm writing, and we'll see where it goes after that. And of course, the characters we set up will live on." You can read the full statement below.

The statement comes amid the shocking news that Gunn and Safran would be replaced by former Marvel Studios executive Jeremy Latcham, effective December 1. The duo was first appointed to the position back in 2022, having released three movies: Superman, Supergirl, and Clayface, and four TV shows: Creature Commandos, Peacemaker season 2, The Penguin, and Lanterns, over the last four years. Still to come are Man of Tomorrow, The People V Gorilla Grodd, Creature Commandos season 2, and the long-awaited The Batman: Part II.

Of course, this change is no doubt part of the Skydance merger, which sees Paramount in full control of Warner Bros. and everything Warner Bros. owns. It's worth noting that, before Gunn and Safran were appointed, Warner Bros. executives reportedly wanted an overhaul of DC in favor of putting classic heroes back at the forefront and making them a bit less dark/more kid-friendly. That said, it's possible that Skydance executives want fewer projects like The People v. Gorilla Grodd and Creature Commandos, and more big-hitters on screen, like Wonder Woman or Aquaman... and finally Batman (who still only exists as part of Matt Reeves' Elseworlds; the DCU has yet to cast a Batman). It also probably doesn't help that Supergirl was a massive critical and commercial failure.

Man of Tomorrow hits theaters on July 9, 2027. For more, here are all the upcoming DC movies and shows announced before Gunn's departure.

James Gunn and DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran are stepping down as the heads of DC Studios and will be replaced by former Marvel Studios executive Jeremy Latcham.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, Gunn and Safran are out of the job from December 1, 2026. That's just over four years after the pair were appointed to the post. In that time, DC Studios has released three movies (Superman, Supergirl and Clayface) and four TV shows (Creature Commandos, Peacemaker season 2, The Penguin and Lanterns). Projects currently in the pipeline include Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow, Jimmy Olsen series The People v. Gorilla Grodd, Creature Commandos season 2, and Elseworlds movie The Batman: Part II.

“Four years ago, we set out to unite DC under one creative vision," Gunn and Safran said in a statement. "In that time, we helped restore Superman to the heart of DC, while opening new doors and telling new stories in film and television with Peacemaker, Creature Commandos, Lanterns and Clayface. "We’re immensely proud of the team that turned that ambition into something real, including the actors, crews and executives we had the opportunity to collaborate with.

"We’ve shared a creative history with Jeremy going back to Marvel, and we’re eager to see the perspective he brings to DC’s next chapter," Gunn and Safran said of their replacement at DC Studios. "We're excited to return to what drew us to this job in the first place, which is telling the stories we love, including the next chapter of Clark and Lex’s journey in Man of Tomorrow."

In a separate, longer statement on Threads, Gunn said he's "incredibly relieved and excited to get back to pure filmmaking" and noted "the characters we set up will live on".

Latcham is Marvel Studios' former senior VP of production and development, and was Kevin Feige's right-hand man at the company for a time, with credits on Iron Man, The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man: Homecoming. As with Gunn and Safran, Latcham will oversee DC's film, TV and animation slate.

"James and Peter launched a new era for DC Studios and led it through a period of real transformation, resetting the foundation and building a slate we’re incredibly proud of," Skydance bosses David Ellison and Ynon Kreiz said in a statement. "We're grateful for their passion, contributions and commitment to this legendary brand."

What the future now holds for DC is now less clear than ever. While several projects from the Gunn and Safran era are still in the pipeline, many were critical of Gunn and Safran's decision not to launch their shared universe with big-hitters like Batman and Wonder Woman, and instead focus on lesser-explored characters like Supergirl and Clayface. Could a creative reboot be on the cards, despite Gunn's Superman movies still being an ongoing concern? We'll soon find out.

Man of Tomorrow releases on July 9, 2027. For more, here's all the upcoming DC movies and shows announced before Gunn's departure.

Adam Driver might have repeatedly turned down Marvel before, but he finally said yes to playing Mr. Sinister in the upcoming X-Men movie.

Speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Driver revealed why he decided this was the right project to join the MCU.

"I was a big X-Men fan when I was a kid," Driver said, and, when Kimmel asked if that meant the comics, he agreed and added "and the TV show," which was "right in my generation."

"I was a big fan. I mean, I was a fan of the other things too, but this one felt like a right time, and then it's X-Men," Driver shared.

He added: "It was really X-Men and Jake Schreier, who's the director, his idea for it, and that it's Kevin Feige. It all kind of came together. The script is really cool."

When Kimmel suggested Driver was being "careful" by checking the project out beforehand, Driver also made sure to say, "A lot of people are going to watch it, and, if it's bad, a lot of people will see you being bad. Plus, I don't want to mess it up. I'm a huge fan of X-Men." Check out the moment below.

Driver's enthusiasm is certainly a reason to get excited – and the rest of the cast is pretty stacked, too. The new X-Men line-up features Kit Connor as Cyclops, Christopher Abbott as Professor X, Inde Navarette as Rogue, Maya Boyd as Storm, and Samara Weaving as Emma Frost, as revealed at this year's D23.

Before then, though, we'll see the Fox-era X-Men back for one last rodeo in December's Avengers: Doomsday. The returning cast members include Ian McKellen's Magneto, Alan Cumming's Nightcrawler, Rebecca Romijn's Mystique, James Marsden's Cyclops, and the late Patrick Stewart's Professor X.

Channing Tatum will also be back as Gambit, after debuting in Deadpool and Wolverine. He recently revealed his character is from the same Marvel timeline as the other X-Men, but "with gray around it."

Doomsday arrives this December 18, while the new X-Men film is slated for release on May 5, 2028. While you wait, check out our guide to all the most exciting upcoming Marvel movies and TV shows for everything else that's in store.

For weeks, the next James Bond shortlist was narrowed down to four actors: Jack Lowden, Callum Turner, Josh O'Connor – and a mystery name.

In a twist that left most 007 fans shaken and stirred, Robert Pattinson and Nicholas Hoult have reportedly tested (as per Variety) for the role, with many declaring Pattinson – who showcased his spy chops in Tenet – the new frontrunner.

Aiding fuel to the fire is Bond 26 director Denis Villeneuve was asked by Vanity Fair to name a recent movie he can't stop thinking about. Curiously, he answered Primetime, the Robert Pattinson-starring drama where he stars as To Catch a Predator's Chris Hansen.

"I was really impressed by Primetime," Villeneuve said. The director also includes Pattinson as part of his star-studded Dune 3 cast, which perhaps may tip the scales in his favor.

Then there's Nicholas Hoult. A perennial runner-up in big-name auditions (Batman, Superman, and Harry Potter, to name but a few), he is an intriguing new name in the mix for a process that has been played out in public over the past month.

Of the other candidates, Jack Lowden has broken his silence on being linked as a prospective new Bond actor, but with the sort of subtlety that might see him welcomed into the corridors of MI6.

Lowden told British GQ, "On this… It’s all very flattering. It’s nice to be mentioned – for any role – and I’m just not really going to add to the noise."

For more on 007's past missions, we have our ranking of the best James Bond movies.

There's also a round-up of the best movies on Amazon Prime – for your eyes only, naturally.

Ms. Marvel actor Iman Vellani has explained why the notorious comic book flop X-Men: The Last Stand "failed" and should have been a trilogy.

Speaking on the Countdown to Avengers: Doomsday Official Podcast that highlighted Fox's X-Men films – a key text on the road to Doomsday – Vellani first took aim at The Last Stand disposing of James Marsden's Scott Summers, before moving on to the treatment of Jean Grey and the adaptation of the Phoenix Saga storyline as a whole.

"He's integral to Jean's story in the Dark Phoenix Saga. To get rid of him in the first 10 minutes completely eliminates any emotional resonance this movie could have had," Vellani said.

If you're familiar with Vellani's Letterboxd account, you'll know she openly isn't a fan of all of Fox's X-Men movies. The Last Stand received a 2.5 score alongside X-Men 2 (ouch), with 2000's X-Men faring slightly better at 3.5.

Much of Vellani's dislike for The Last Stand is how it handles the iconic Dark Phoenix Saga arc. In Marvel's comics, Jean Grey was slowly – and tragically – transformed by the Phoenix Force, an entity that could have wiped out the entire universe. In truth, The Last Stand's abridged version didn't do it justice.

"It's so reductive of that entire storyline," Vellani said. "If they wanted to do the Phoenix Saga properly, it should have been three or four movies, even, and really milk it. There's so much that happens – it's so thrilling, cosmic, and expansive. To stuff it into one movie with 'The Cure' storyline, oh my god. This movie failed the minute they made Jean's story also secondary."

For more Phoenix Force-level hot takes, we have our own ranking of the best X-Men movies. Then, discover what else is coming to the MCU after Avengers: Doomsday with our guide to upcoming Marvel movies.

Shuri was never supposed to be the Black Panther. In 2020, Chadwick Boseman, who portrayed T'Challa with so much regal gravitas, died at the age of 43. In the terrible aftermath, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was released – a beautiful entry in the MCU that functions both as a deeply loving tribute to Boseman and an emotional passing of the torch to Letitia Wright's Shuri.

It's this context that makes Black Panther: Wakanda Forever such an extraordinary accomplishment. Not only is it a genuinely thrilling chapter in the MCU, but it also pulls off the tricky task of handing over the mantle in a way that feels respectful and natural to the characters involved, while honoring the real Boseman. It doesn't shy away from this reality, instead choosing to tell a story that focuses heavily on Shuri's raw grief and her complicated journey to stepping up as her nation's protector.

Now, Shuri is set to return in Avengers: Doomsday, standing alongside other Marvel titans like Chris Hemsworth's Thor and the original X-Men. I just hope that, among the stacked cast, Shuri gets her chance to shine – because she's earned it.

Love persevering

Wakanda Forever begins with T'Challa dying from a mystery illness. Despite her super-genius intellect, Shuri is powerless against this invisible enemy and unable to synthesize a new heart-shaped herb, and so T'Challa dies. Shuri, who idolized her big brother, is devastated – and, after a time-skip of a year, she is still struggling with her all-encompassing grief, which is making her as angry as she is heartbroken.

It's this raw emotion that makes Shuri's journey to becoming a fully fledged hero so compelling. Shuri, very understandably, does not want to become the Black Panther. It doesn't even cross her mind. Instead, she has the incredibly human reaction of simply wanting to grieve. But in the Marvel universe, nobody has any breathing space for long, and the arrival of Namor and the threat of CIA intervention over Vibranium pushes Shuri back into the fray. It's when the situation spirals out of control, and Namor kills her mother, Queen Ramonda, that Shuri finally returns to attempting to reconstruct the heart-shaped herb.

As a showdown with Killmonger in the Ancestral Plane demonstrates, though, Shuri is not solely motivated by an altruistic desire to be a hero: she wants revenge. Her anger and pain at the loss of T'Challa have been exacerbated by the murder of her mother, resulting in a furious grief that threatens to plunge Wakanda into an endless war with its underwater neighbours. It's a natural breaking point in her struggle to deal with so much loss, and sets Shuri's arc apart from the rise to greatness of other MCU heroes in its messy, intense vulnerability and pain.

Ultimately, though, Shuri, movingly encouraged by the spirit of Ramonda, chooses peace by sparing Namor's life and putting an end to the fighting between Wakanda and Talokan. This triumphant finish clears the way, allowing Shuri to finally process her grief – and even meet her nephew, T'Challa II. Her story in the film ends with a quiet moment on the beach, burning her mourning clothes, letting go of the painful past in order to face a more hopeful future.

Shuri's journey is not easy, and it's not one she even wanted – mirroring the awful real-life circumstances that led to the storyline. In this anguish is a beautiful evolution, powered by a standout performance from Wright, that brings Shuri from the fun, kid sister sidekick to the Black Panther herself. This passing of the torch is so effective because it truly means something, both within the MCU and in real life, and it gifts Shuri with boundless potential.

The Black Panther lives

It was announced at SDCC that Shuri will soon be passing on the mantle herself, this time to T'Challa II. The Long Walk star David Jonsson will play the character, though how it will all work out is unclear at the moment, since Jonsson is much older than the young T'Challa II at the end of Wakanda Forever. ("In this next film, he grows up, comes of age, and we had to find an incredible actor," director Ryan Coogler shared on stage.)

Hopefully, then, Shuri gets her chance to shine in Avengers: Doomsday before surrendering the mantle. This is her first opportunity to truly spread her wings as the Black Panther after Wakanda Forever, and, with such a stacked cast, there's every risk Shuri might fall by the wayside – which would be a huge mistake, after how far she has come. She can be glimpsed in the trailers so far, though sadly not for very long.

But Wright may have already inadvertently let slip that she's part of the Avengers: Secret Wars cast, which would mean we have one more chance after Doomsday to see her in all her power before Jonsson takes over in Black Panther 3. What might happen in Secret Wars heavily depends on Doomsday, of course, but this duo of blockbuster event films offers the perfect chance to bring Shuri's MCU story to a meaningful close, paying off the emotional set-up of Wakanda Forever.

Shuri was never supposed to be the Black Panther, but she has more than proved how capable she is of being Wakanda's protector – and I hope Doomsday gives her the chance to truly show it.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is available to stream now on Disney Plus, ahead of the release of Avengers: Doomsday on December 18.

Look ahead with our list of upcoming Marvel movies and check out how to watch the Marvel movies in order ahead of your next rewatch. See you next week as we revisit Captain America: Brave New World.

The first look at Latveria in Avengers: Doomsday is here over a month early – as part of a Jeep commercial.

As spotlighted by New Rockstars' Erik Voss on Twitter, the latest round of Doomsday marketing features Captain America, Johnny Storm, and The Thing each taking a Jeep through a portal in a handful of familiar locations – including Avengers Tower and Wakanda.

Their final destination is the real talking point, however. There, the Jeeps converge into the snowy climes of Latveria, a mountainous nation-state that appears to show Doom's castle and the capital Doomstadt.

In the comics, Castle Doom is frequently depicted as Doctor Doom's base of operations, upon which he rules over the fictional nation of Latveria. But much like most of Doomsday, Doom's HQ has been under wraps.

In fact, Doomsday marketing has been a most unlikely source of spoilers. Already, we have had a Dunkin' Donuts commercial reveal Gambit's new accent and dive deeper into the universe-altering influx of incursions.

A Funko Pop has also confirmed that Doom will spend at least some part of the movie with Reed Richards and Sue Storm's son, Franklin – a likely follow-up to the Fantastic Four post-credits scene which saw the Marvel supervillain meet the gifted, super-powered child.

What next, a T-shirt that spoils a surprise cameo? A burger that ruins the ending? At this rate, we wouldn't be surprised. Keep your eyes glued to screens to see what other Avengers: Doomsday promotions might have in store for us next.

Avengers: Doomsday hits cinemas on December 16 in the UK and December 18 in the US.

For more, we have a complete guide to upcoming Marvel movies.

Despite some well-meaning discussion around whether Avengers: Secret Wars would make its release date, it appears Disney and Marvel Studios have no intention of a delay.

As documented by Hablemos de Cine, the Argentinian Disney 2027 Upfront event featured confirmation that – for now, at least – Secret Wars remains set for December 17, 2027. The 2028 movies, X-Men, Ghost Rider, and Black Panther 3, are also still locked in.

A direct sequel to Avengers: Doomsday, Secret Wars is set to bring the Multiverse Saga to a close. As of right now, the only confirmed details we have arrived courtesy of San Diego Comic-Con in 2024 – namely, Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom would be joined by the main casts of Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four.

Anthony Mackie also said he will be back as Captain America, but has said he won't be filming Secret Wars until July – hence the whispers that Secret Wars would need to be pushed back into 2028 to accommodate various actors' schedules.

As of late July this year, directors Anthony and Joe Russo were starting to "sweat" with how close they were to beginning Secret Wars filming but, unless everything has been completely under wraps, it appears there hasn't been a great deal of progress made with production this year.

Still, there's the small matter of Avengers: Doomsday to get out the way first. A new synopsis promises an "existential threat" amid the uncertain future of the multiverse.

Early ticket sales are reflective of the excitement around the movie, too, with numbers already crossing $125 million over a month out from release. Maybe Secret Wars can wait a little longer?

For more an all things MCU, we have complete guides on upcoming Marvel movies and how to watch the Marvel movies in order.

Fans are already worried about what they are going to miss in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping if they choose to see it on a regular screen rather than in IMAX.

Over on Twitter, IMAX Downtown Indiana teased the expanded aspect ratio, showing fans what to expect if they see the prequel movie on the biggest screen possible. However, it looks like most of the wider scenes take place in the arena, meaning fans who don't have access to an IMAX cinema will miss out on some of the action.

"Our place doesn’t have IMAX," said one disappointed fan, and another added, "The difference between a regular screen and IMAX is totally insane." However, one eagle-eyed fan spotted that a key death takes place in the background, right under the IMAX boundary. We don't want to spoil the story for those who haven't read the book, so we won't reveal whose death is shown, but it might mean that regular cinema-goers will miss out on this.

Sunrise on the Reaping is the first film in the franchise to have been filmed for IMAX. According to IMAX, it features over 45 minutes of footage filmed in 1.90:1 expanded aspect ratio. It is thought that the ratio will change as the tributes rise up into the arena, just as the screen widened slightly in the 2013 sequel The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

IMAX is causing quite the stir in the movie industry, with many projects having a number of scenes filmed for the wider screens. Earlier this year, Christopher Nolan made history by releasing the first movie completely filmed for IMAX, The Odyssey. Screenings at IMAX 70mm cinemas were sold out for months, with many movie buffs flying into cities with IMAX cinemas just so they could see the ancient Greek epic as Nolan intended.

Set 24 years before the first film, Sunrise on the Reaping follows 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy (Joseph Zada) as he is drafted into the 50th Hunger Games, where the game makers send in twice as many players as usual to mark the second Quarter Quell. We first met Haymitch, played by Woody Harrelson, as Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark's mentor in the original saga. Excitingly, the new movie features a cameo from Katniss and Peeta stars Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping hits theaters on November 20. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the other most exciting upcoming movies of the year, or the major movie release dates still to come.

A new synopsis for Avengers: Doomsday has raised the stakes of the Marvel Phase 6 film even higher.

The synopsis comes courtesy of the book From Endgame to Doomsday: A Marvel Studios Visual Dictionary: Avengers, Allies, and Foes and has been shared online by the Marvel Updates fan Twitter account.

"As a new existential threat emerges, courageous teams from three universes must come together to prevent a catastrophic event," it reads. "The Avengers, the New Avengers, the Wakandans, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men will need to put aside their suspicions of each other to work together against a force more powerful than any of these groups have faced before. Their choices and actions in this crucial moment will lay the foundation for the future of the Multiverse."

The existential threat is, of course, Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom, and the future of the Multiverse likely revolves around the threat of incursions that form part of the plot. Clearly, the stakes for the MCU have never been higher.

Plus, we've seen the Avengers and the X-Men fight in the trailers, but this synopsis is proof that it's not all going to be happy families for the rest of the gathering heroes, and there will be some tensions among the teams. All in all, it sounds like Marvel's biggest film yet.

Avengers: Doomsday arrives this December 18, while VisionQuest is releasing weekly on Disney Plus. You can keep up to date with our VisionQuest release schedule.

For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming Marvel movies and TV shows for everything else the MCU has in store.

A Constantine movie is in early stages of development at DC Studios.

As per Deadline, writer-director Francis Galluppi – who is helming the upcoming Evil Dead Wrath – will be penning the script.

Beyond that, it's so early days on the project that we have far more questions than answers.

Firstly, what does that mean for Keanu Reeves' continued attempts to reprise the otherworldly detective role after appearing in 2005's Constantine?

"Fingers crossed. Another draft of the script came in," Reeves told Rotten Tomatoes just last year when asked how things were going with the prospective Francis Lawrence-directed sequel. "We're waiting. We're gonna take it to the studio and hopefully they like it too."

DC Studios co-CEO Jaes Gunn later confirmed he had "discussed" a Constantine 2 with Keanu Reeves.

Years prior, Guillermo del Toro once had plans for Justice League Dark, a team-up movie led by Constantine and featuring a Batman cameo.

Intriguingly, Bill Skarsgård told Happy Sad Confused that he had an idea to do a Constantine at DC with IT director Andy Muschietti. The plot thickens…

Elsewhere, we need confirmation about Elseworlds, the alternate universe banner that Gunn is bestowing upon movies and shows that don't fit into DCU's main universe. Matt Reeves' Bat-verse is one of them, but will Constantine follow suit? Or could he be part of the horror-tinged side of the cinematic universe that now includes Clayface? So many burning questions, let's hope Constantine walks through Hell to give us some answers soon.

For more, we have a look ahead to all the new superhero movies in the works.

Less than one week after James Gunn confirmed that his 2021 movie The Suicide Squad is canon to the DCU, the DC Studios boss has swapped up the timeline yet again, finally confirming when new movie Clayface is set.

Over on Instagram Threads, ComicBookCollide posted their take on the DCU timeline, starting with Lanterns' past timeline in 2016, followed by Clayface in 2021, The Suicide Squad in early 2022, Peacemaker season 1 in late 2022, and so on. Gunn replied, "Timelines give me anxiety, but I think this looks pretty good."

So, with confirmation from Gunn, the updated DCU timeline is as follows:

• Lanterns – set in 2016
• Clayface – set in 2021
• The Suicide Squad – set in Spring 2022
• Peacemaker season 1 – set in Fall 2022
• Blue Beetle – set in 2023
• Creature Commandos – set in 2024
• Superman – set in 2025
• Peacemaker season 2 – set in 2025
• Supergirl – set in 2026
• Lanterns flash-forward – set in 2026

As for projects still in the works, the proposed timeline slots Creature and Commandos season 2 in between Peacemaker season 2 and Supergirl. While 2027 Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow and upcoming HBO mockumentary The People vs. Gorilla Grodd take place pretty much in present time, and will slot in after Lanterns (2026).

Now, we already knew that Clayface had broken the DCU's trend of releasing projects in chronological order, as Gunn had already confirmed that despite it releasing in 2026, the horror movie takes place before Superman. Up until that point, all DCU Chapter One releases took place in the present time in relation to when they hit the big screen.

Right now, it doesn't really matter when Clayface takes place, as it is a standalone story exploring the Batman villain's origin in Gotham City, with no mention of the wider universe. However, as the DCU grows and Gotham widens with projects such as The Brave and the Bold, we'll want to keep track of what happens when.

Clayface is out in cinemas now. For more, check out our guide on need to head to our guide on how to watch the DC movies in order, and keep up with upcoming DC movies on the way.

Almost two decades after he saddled up as Johnny Blaze, Nicolas Cage has shared his well wishes for Marvel's new Ghost Rider, Ryan Gosling.

"Ryan’s going to do his thing with it, and I’m looking forward to seeing it," said Cage to The Hollywood Reporter. The star revealed that he has already reached out to Gosling to pass on his congratulations, adding, "Ryan knows how I feel about him as an actor; we’ve had nice conversations, and we stay in touch. I was happy for him and wished him the best of luck on his adventures, and I look forward to seeing the movie.”

Cage starred as the fire-headed motorcycle stuntman in the 2007 movie Ghost Rider, following stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze who makes a deal with the Devil to save his father, but years later he is granted special powers so he can destroy the Devil's son, Blackheart. Funnily enough, the original movie also stars Eva Mendes as Blaze's love interest, who is Gosling's wife in real life. Cage reprised the role in the 2012 sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, but Blaze has been off our screens ever since.

Blaze was first introduced to Marvel Comics in 1972. After gaining his powers, the flaming skull head rides around on his fiery bike, going after criminals and punishing them in violent ways with his demonic powers. No plot details for the MCU Ghost Rider movie have been announced at this time, so it is not clear if it will act as an origin story as Cage's 2007 flick did. The new movie is set to start production in New York next year

Marvel announced the upcoming Ghost Rider movie earlier this year at San Diego Comic-Con 2026. Deadpool and Wolverine helmer Shawn Levy is set to direct, with Jonathan Tropper on board as writer. Heated Rivalry star Connor Storrie is in talks to play the movie's villain, and Marvel fans think he might be playing Johnny Blaze's long-lost brother and fellow Ghost Rider, Danny Ketch.

Ghost Rider is set to hit theaters on July 28, 2028. For more, keep up with other upcoming Marvel movies and shows.

Scarlett Johansson has broken her silence on The Batman 2, with the one-time Marvel star revealing she found it hard to crack her mystery DC role.

“It gave me a lot of existential angst, for some reason,” Johansson said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.

On finding her way into the character, she added, "It was very hard to figure out. I don’t know why, whether it was just the role or it was just where I am in my life, but it was just hard to crack it. That’s all I can say about it. It was a tough role in a lot of ways."

Right now, most of The Batman sequel is under lock and key. We know that director Matt Reeves had to depart the production, with Steven Soderbergh stepping in to complete Reeves's work.

Robert Pattinson returns as, too, does Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon, Andy Serkis as Alfred, and Colin Farrell as The Penguin.

Beyond that, there is still speculation around the identity of who the newcomers are playing. Alongside Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Charles Dance, and Brian Tyree Henry will be making their mark on Gotham.

Of that quartet, it appears Henry's role has surfaced. According to prosthetics spotted in the background of a makeup artist team's room, he could be playing Harvey Dent, AKA Two-Face. There's also been talk about Stan – who has shaved his head – portraying serial killer Victor Zsasz.

Johansson's words, though, don't yet enlighten us any further as to who she will be playing. Rumors say it's Harvey Dent's wife, Gilda but, either way, it sounds like the sort of rich, meaty role that made the first Batman such a breakout success.

Whatever the case may be, Robert Pattinson's Caped Crusader will have plenty to handle when he returns to cinemas in The Batman 2 on February 18, 2028.

For more, read on to discover the upcoming DC movies in the works.

Channing Tatum has addressed which universe his X-Men character is from in Avengers: Doomsday – and it's made me worried.

Speaking to Screen Rant, Tatum at first said he didn't "want to give that away," then confirmed his Gambit is from the same timeline as the likes of Ian McKellan's Magneto and Patrick Stewart's Professor X, but "with gray around it."

Then, he explained: "Even where he came from in Deadpool and Wolverine, like you're saying, he hasn't been anywhere, in a way, and he was born in The Void, in a way. It doesn't go into it is what I would say. We start in such a place that we never really get to address where he's come from."

That certainly makes it sound like the film doesn't have the time to get into Gambit's origins, and that's what has me worried. There has been a persistent fan theory that all of the X-Men will die early in the film, which was seemingly supported by the trailers showcasing a lot of the Avengers vs. X-Men fight in the X-Mansion, but not a whole lot of the X-Men afterwards. Plus, a reboot movie is coming, and Marvel's X-Men movie has an all new cast.

If Gambit is introduced then dies moments later, it would make sense that we don't get to learn about his origin. But, it's also possible that the film, with its hugely stacked cast, simply doesn't have the time to get into such details. We'll just have to wait and see.

Avengers: Doomsday is the next Marvel release, arriving this December 18, while VisionQuest is releasing now on Disney Plus. You can keep up to date with our VisionQuest release schedule.

For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows for everything else that's on the way.

Heath Ledger's appearance as the Joker in The Dark Knight remains one of the most influential performances in cinema history. However, the role was actually offered to two actors before he got the script.

Christopher Nolan's longtime casting director John Papsidera shared the insight at the Nashville Film Festival. According to TV Intelligentsia, Nolan first sent the script to Leonardo DiCaprio before sending it on to Joaquin Phoenix. The former went on to star in Inception with the director while the latter famously played the role in Todd Phillips' Joker movies. It was only after both passed that they spoke to Ledger.

Papsidera gave a bit more context from this process in a separate interview with Collider, although he didn't name names. However, this insight reveals that DiCaprio never even responded to the script.

"There was three actors really that we talked about, Heath being the third," he told the publication at the festival. "There was certainly more actors, but we discussed it in specific terms with two actors. The first one we never heard back from. The second one came in and told us why he didn't want to do the movie, because he didn't want to do big movies. And the third one was Heath."

He went on to describe how they knew that Ledger was perfect for the part. "Heath talked about how he saw the role as an anarchist in that all he wanted to do was tear everything down and that's exactly how Chris saw it and wanted it portrayed," Papsidera explained.

For more, check out our guide to upcoming movies and upcoming superhero movies.

Channing Tatum says he's still fighting for his standalone Gambit movie... despite Disney pulling the plug back in 2019.

"We had three different directors that were signed up to do it, and the first one, the studio, Fox, they had a fallout, so that one didn't work out," Tatum tells ScreenRant. "The second one was just in development for so long with somebody that I was just like, 'We got to move to making this thing.' So we separated ourselves, and then the third one almost got going with Gore Verbinski, and then creatively all three of us, the studio, him and me, we started in the same place, and then as it developed, we just all grew apart."

Tatum went on to say that Shawn Levy was interested in directing a previous script, but that he and his producing partner Reid Carolin just weren't ready yet (and keep in mind the year was around 2014). The actor says he's still "fighting" for the chance to make the film, and that he's waiting for a "very, very good director to realize it."

A standalone Gambit movie starring Tatum was greenlit in 2014 and ultimately cancelled in 2019 when Disney acquired Fox. Tatum's featured appearance as the card-wielding X-Men member in Deadpool and Wolverine made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, as I could only imagine how stoked Tatum must've been to finally put on the suit.

In a deleted Deadpool and Wolverine scene, Gambit escapes the Void (which is where Deadpool encounters all those Fox-owned X-Men characters in the first place), and is now set to appear in Avengers: Doomsday.

Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters in the UK December 16 and in the US on December 18. For more, check out our guides to the Marvel timeline and how to watch the Marvel movies in order.

The first trailer for Lords of War, a direct sequel to Nicolas Cage's 2005 crime thriller Lord of War, has arrived with Bill Skarsgard in tow.

Per the film's official synopsis, the movie sees Yuri (Cage) reunite with his son Orlov (Skarsgard), but as Orlov tries to right his father's wrongs rather than stop them he launches a mercenary army to fight America's Middle East conflicts. In the trailer, which can be viewed above, it doesn't seem like a happy father-son reunion as Orlov spends most of the brief clip chasing his father around with a gun.

Andrew Niccol returns to direct from a script he once again penned himself. The cast includes Laura Harrier, Sylvia Hoeks, and Greg Tarzan Davis.

The original film, inspired by the real-life events of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, premiered in 2005 to mixed-to-positive reviews, but failed to perform at the global box office. The cast includes Hawke, Jared Leto, Bridget Moynahan, Sammi Rotibi, Ian Holm, and Eamonn Walker.

A sequel was announced back in 2023, with Niccol excitedly stating: "There is so much more to explore with these characters. Plato said it best – 'Only the dead have seen the end of war.'" He also noted that Orlov is Yuri's "illegitimate son," but I guess we'll just have to watch the movie in order to find out what that means...

Lords of War hits theaters on January 22, 2027. For more, check out our list of all the exciting upcoming movies in 2026 and beyond.

In a stroke of genius, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping has taken movie marketing to the next level by merging the politics of Panem with real-world public affairs.

During Fox News and CNN's coverage of the US midterm elections on November 3, Ralph Fiennes' President Snow from the upcoming Hunger Games prequel suddenly appeared on the screen. The TV spot, which has since been posted on Twitter, saw Snow address the nation to announce the 50th Hunger Games, reminding Panem why it has to take place. However, partway through, the resistance hacks into the feed, with the recurring message 'Break the Machine' appearing on the screen.

This isn't the first time that the movie has attempted to blend our world with the nation of Panem. Last month, the prequel launched an in-universe website called CapitolTV, where fans can flick through channels and see Snow's full message featured above, commercials featuring Glenn Close's Drusilla Sickle and Billy Porter Stift, and PSA's about why the Hunger Games were introduced in the first place, apparently to reinstate peace.

Set 24 years before the first film, Sunrise on the Reaping follows 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy (Joseph Zada) as he is drafted into the 50th Hunger Games. Fans will remember that Haymitch, previously played by Woody Harrelson in the original saga, later became Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark's mentor with a dark past. The new movie will give us insight into what Haymitch went through in the second Quarter Quell, which saw game makers raise the stakes and send in not two but four tributes from each of the 12 districts.

The cast also includes Mckenna Grace as Maysilee Donner, Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket, Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee, Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman, Lili Taylor as Mags, Maya Hawke as Wiress, Ben Wang as Wyatt Callow, and more. Hunger Games' leads Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson are set to make a cameo as Katniss and Peeta too.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping hits theaters on November 20. For more, check out our guide to upcoming movies and keep up with movie release dates.

Channing Tatum's Gambit voice has changed in Avengers: Doomsday, and it's much better than Deadpool and Wolverine's incomprehensible take on the X-Men member.

The debut of Tatum's fresh take on Gambit arrived in a Dunkin' Donuts commercial, of all places.

There, the card-dealing mutant gets a crash course in Incurions – that is, the colliding of two or more worlds – from Fantastic Four's cutesy robot helper, H.E.R.B.I.E.

"Doomsday is here, mon ami," Gambit says in his Cajun drawl, which is worlds away from the running Deadpool and Wolverine joke that featured his character running through his words in the Void at a mile a minute.

Now a fully-formed character instead of a caricature, Gambit is set to be a key part of Avengers: Doomsday.

Channing Tatum's journey to be front and center with a role so near and dear to his own history (having grown up in Mississippi) has been a long and arduous one.

Originally, he was lined up to appear as Gambit in his own standalone movie, but that eventually fell away after years in limbo.

Deadpool and Wolverine brought him back among a mass of characters 'discarded' by the Void in one deliciously meta moment. As revealed in a deleted scene, Gambit then made his escape as the Void was wiped out – seemingly setting the stage for his character to return in Doomsday.

Gambit joins his fellow X-Men in Avengers: Doomsday, which hits UK cinemas on December 16 and in the US on December 18.

For more, we have a comprehensive guide to the Marvel timeline and how to watch the Marvel movies in order.

The rumors are true: Mason Thames is indeed set to voice Dick Grayson aka Robin in DC's upcoming animated Dynamic Duo movie.

"We always talk about wanting volunteers and not recruits to be part of the DCU, to be part of DC Studios, and Mason always wanted to be Dick Grayson. He just did," DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran told Collider. "And he came in, and auditioned the s*** out of it, and was awesome. He's a wonderful young actor, but boy, did he want this. He was just obsessed. When he came over to the DC offices, he came over with his dad at the time, and we’ve got tons of great archives and stuff in there, and wanted to take a picture of everything and with everything. He's a fan."

Deadline previously reported that Mason Thames, best known for starring in The Black Phone and the live-action How to Train Your Dragon movie, was in talks to voice Grayson, with Ghostbusters: Afterlife's Logan Kim set to voice Jason Todd, the second hero to don the Robin moniker... though Safran has only confirmed Thames thus far. Steve Buscemi has reportedly been cast as Red Hood Two.

The animated movie is set to to tell the origin story of both Robins as the two friends "navigate their dreams and differing visions for the future." Dynamic Duo is not canon to the DCU, therefore a Robin (or a Batman for that matter) has still not been cast for the DCU.

The Batman director Matt Reeves' production company, 6th & Idaho is set to produce the film, with Arthur Mintz directing from a script by The script is written by Matthew Aldrich.

Dynamic Duo is set to release on September 22, 2028. For more, check out our guide on how to watch the DC movies in order, and keep up with new DC movies and shows on the way.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping star Mckenna Grace has proven once again that she is the perfect person to play Haymitch's right-hand woman, Maysilee Donner, in the upcoming prequel movie, as the star has revealed that she was insistent on honouring the beloved 2011 fan-made short film right from the start of the process.

Despite Suzanne Collins novel Sunrise on the Reaping detailing the 50th Hunger Games only hitting shelves in 2025, the upcoming movie adaptation won't be the first film to explore Haymitch's Hunger Games experience. Back in 2011, a 12-minute-long fan-made short film titled 'Hunger Games: The Second Quarter Quell' was posted online by MainstayPro, using what we learned about Haymitch's games from the first three books to bring the second Quarter Quell to life.

"Whenever the auditions started coming around, I watched the fan-made film. I would watch it over and over," said Grace in a new featurette posted on The Hunger Games Twitter page. "Every day I would show up to pre-production with the braid in my hair so that I could subconsciously convince them that that's what I had to have. My bangs have to be like this, I have to wear the braid, and then I got the straight hair too."

Grace turned to Stefania Barr, who played Maysilee in the short film, and said, "You are what shaped so many people's, including my own, perception of Maysilee Donner because you are what the fanbase had and imagined for so long." Now that's what we call putting the fans first.

Set 24 years before the first film, Sunrise on the Reaping follows 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy (Joseph Zada), previously played by Woody Harrelson in the original saga, as he is drafted into the 50th Hunger Games. But to mark the second quarter, the game makers raise the stakes and send in double the players.

Alongside Grace, the cast includes Ralph Fiennes as President Snow, Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket, Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee, Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman, Glenn Close as Drusilla Sickle, Lili Taylor as Mags, Maya Hawke as Wiress, Ben Wang as Wyatt Callow, and more. Hunger Games' leads Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson are set to make a cameo as Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, too.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping hits theaters on November 20. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the other most exciting upcoming movies of the year, or the major movie release dates still to come.

Some DC fans think the new Batman 2 leak that might have revealed some major villain details isn't all that it seems.

The leak comes courtesy of a behind-the-scenes look at Heidi Klum's Halloween costume, and it seemingly reveals that Sebastian Stan is actually playing Victor Zsasz, and Brian Tyree Henry is playing Two-Face.

"I think they want to throw us off," speculates one fan on Twitter. "Whether Reeves is behind it or not, I think this is like what happened with Zoe Kravitz and Barry Keoghan in the first one, where we saw them in the church (the second one being a random cop). In the end, Selina was never there and Barry played the Joker."

However, this theory does come with some caveats. "I'm so tired of folk thinking Zoe Kravitz was on The Batman funeral set to trick onlookers. She was in the footage to make it more believable from Bruce's POV that he'd mistake a woman for her," points out someone else. "And that wasn't Barry Keoghan on set, it was a random extra who kinda looked like him"

Still, the idea of a red herring has sparked debate. "I don't think they would go as far as to get Heidi Klum in on this, this was a full on error," says one person.

"I thought I was going insane being the only person who thought this was just a misdirect, thank you!" says someone else.

Reeves himself might have teased the true identity of the Two-Face actor back when he confirmed Brian Tyree Henry's casting on Twitter, too.

The Batman 2 arrives on February 18, 2028. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the upcoming DC movies and TV shows for everything else that's in store.

Just over a month before the new MCU movie lands in cinemas, new Avengers: Doomsday artwork has found its way online, but a closer look at the X-Men reveals an interesting detail about Ian McKellen's Magneto.

The images were shared on Twitter by French fansite HexFacility, which has been known to share legit Marvel leaks in the past. Although we cannot confirm that the images have come from Marvel Studios, it looks like the artwork has been taken from Hasbro's Marvel Legends Avengers: Doomsday Series, as many of the images line up with the heroes' action-figure counterparts and the packaging.

The new images give us a new look at Captain America, Thor, Doctor Doom, Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Sue Storm, Reed Richards, the Thing, M'Baku, Shuri, and more.

The artwork also features X-Men Professor X, Magneto, Gambit, Cyclops, Mystique, Nightcrawler, and Beast. However, one Marvel fan on Reddit has noticed an interesting detail about Magneto. If you take a closer look, you can see that most of the mutants are wearing an X belt to signify they are part of Charles' X-Men squad, including Magneto. Check out the images below.

"I love how everyone has the X mark on their belts, even Magneto. It shows everyone is on the same side, despite Magneto and Mystique being rivals in the past," said the fan. Although we cannot see the front of Mystique's belt, it looks like she too is sporting the X-Men uniform. In the original Fox-era X-Men trilogy, Charles and Erik were often at odds, with Erik, aka Magneto, often waging war on the human race. But Charles was always there with his mutants to make him see sense.

We already knew that the two would be somewhat civil in the new movie. In the Avengers: Doomsday trailer, we see them sitting together, looking pretty terrified as their universe faces destruction from Doctor Doom. Alongside McKellan and the late Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Doomsday welcomes back original X-Men James Marsden as Cyclops, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique, Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler, and Kelsey Grammer as Beast, and adds Deadpool and Wolverine's Channing Tatum as Gambit.

But Magneto doesn't really have a choice either way, as everyone is going to have to work together if they have any chance of stopping Robert Downey Jr.'s Victor Von Doom. As the official synopsis reads, "Doomsday is set to bring beloved heroes from three distinct universes together as they’re set on a deadly collision course and face an existential threat unlike anything they’ve ever encountered."

Avengers: Doomsday hits US theaters on December 18, and in UK cinemas on December 16. For more on Marvel Phase 6, check out our guide on how to watch the Marvel movies in order, and keep up with upcoming Marvel movies on the way.

The Batman 2 director Matt Reeves might have already given away that another actor was playing Two-Face – and nobody noticed.

Thanks to a behind-the-scenes look at Heidi Klum's latest Halloween costume, it was seemingly revealed that Sebastian Stan will not be playing Two-Face in the upcoming DC sequel. Instead, Brian Tyree Henry looks to be the actor bringing the iconic villain to life, and Stan is instead playing Victor Zsasz.

When Reeves confirmed Henry's casting on Twitter, he captioned the post "Welcome to the party, man…"

"Partyman" is the name of Prince's iconic Batman soundtrack song, and the video features him wearing the Joker's makeup on half of his face, with a crowd wearing masks covering half of their faces, too. Could this be a veiled reference to Two-Face, who famously has one half of his face disfigured? It certainly looks like it…

The leak also seemed to confirm that the Court of Owls will be part of the film, as well as Sebastian Koch's role apparently involving prosthetics.

After Reeves had to step away from production for a personal matter, Steven Soderbergh has taken over to finish principal photography. "I am so happy he's come on to help Matt," star Robert Pattinson told us recently. "It's incredibly generous of him – and he's doing it in the loveliest way. It's completely selfless.

"I think Matt had put so much work into the script, and we're almost done," Pattinson added. "So for someone to come in and say, 'I just want to help Matt do it; I want to do it in conjunction with him and just get it to the edit.' And to have someone who's as talented as Steven doing it is great."

The Batman 2 arrives on February 18, 2028. While you wait, check out our guide to all the upcoming DC movies and TV shows for everything else that's on the way.

Ben Wang is reportedly entering talks to play Bobby Drake, aka Iceman, in the MCU's upcoming X-Men movie.

Per Deadline, nothing is set in stone yet, but actors Gabriel LaBelle (The Fablemans), Jackson Kelly (The Body), and Rhenzy Feliz (The Penguin) also auditioned for the role.

Iceman made his comic book appearance in The X-Men #1, circa 1963, as one of the founding members of the supergroup. His mutant abilities include thermokinesis, hydrokinesis, and cryokinesis. In the live-action Fox movies from the early '00s, Iceman was romantically paired with Rogue (as they didn't even bother to cast a live-action Gambit for whatever reason)... which is especially weird given that he's canonically queer and even dated Emma Frost's brother, Christian Frost, in the comics.

The rest of the cast so far includes Christopher Abbott as Professor Charles Xavier, Maya Boyd as Storm, Asa Germann as Angel, Adam Driver as Mister Sinister, Inde Navarrette as Rogue, Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, and Samara Weaving as Emma Frost.

Wang is perhaps best known for his starring role in the Disney Plus series American Born Chinese, as well as Karate Kid: Legends and The Long Walk. The actor is also set to appear in the upcoming prequel The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (also helmed by The Long Walk director Francis Lawrence).

X-Men hits theaters on May 5, 2028. For more, check out our guide to everything announced at D23 2026. We've also rounded up all of the upcoming Marvel movies and shows on the way in 2026 and beyond.

Nicholas Hoult says his How to Rob a Bank vigilante character and DC villain Lex Luthor have a lot more in common than you'd think.

"For both of them, I think there's this element of, like, the end goal," Hoult tells GamesRadar+, when asked how Ryan and Lex Luthor compare. "They got so fixated on it. And that was what was really interesting about playing Luthor in Man of Tomorrow – I don't want to give too much away about the movie – but how James Gunn has written the character. There's a lot for Lex to try and understand about himself and the world. And so that was interesting to play."

In How to Rob a Bank, Hoult plays Ryan, the leader of a group of masked vigilantes (played by Pete Davidson, Anna Sawai, and Rhenzy Feliz) who are social media famous for their elaborate bank-robbing schemes. Ryan, either via YouTube video or livestream, gives pretty thorough instructions on how to rob a bank, evade police, and a plethora of other illegal activities. The key difference between Ryan and Lex Luthor, however, is that Ryan is doing it for the greater good. Lex, as we saw in James Gunn's Superman, is a bit more self-involved...

Continues Hoult: "But I think it's fun to play characters that have got, like, this set goal and obsession because then it gives you a very clear path through the story and the scenes."

Man of Tomorrow sees Superman and Lex Luthor come together in order to defeat Braniac, a supervillain that the Man of Steel can't take on alone. Star Nathan Fillion previously said we’ll "learn more about who Lex Luthor is" in the upcoming DC sequel.

How to Rob a Bank hits theaters on November 13. Man of Tomorrow is out July 9, 2027. For more, check out our breakdown of all the upcoming DC movies and shows on the way in 2026 and beyond.

Hayley Atwell says Marvel explored a few different storylines for Avengers: Doomsday, and only a few made the cut.

"We tried different things, we shot different things, there were different storylines, some picked up, some developed, some dropped away," Atwell told The Playlist, careful to not reveal specifics.

Despite being absent from the initial cast reveal (which, if you recall, involved a livestream and several chairs), she made a surprise appearance during Marvel's big Hall H panel at SDCC 2026 that confirmed her involvement in Doomsday. Most recently, she appeared in a special Avengers: Endgame Encore post-credits scene alongside Chris Evans. In the scene, Loki travels back into the past and knocks on Steve and Peggy's door.

It wouldn't make sense for Steve Rogers to appear in Doomsday without Peggy, given that his decision to return to the past (rather than grow old and run for government like Bucky Barnes) was based solely on his desire to live out a full life with Peggy instead.

Atwell made her last MCU appearance in 2022's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as a multiversal variant, known as Captain Carter, belonging to Earth-838. It was a short-lived cameo, however, as she was quickly killed by the Scarlet Witch (something that Atwell said was a "disservice" to her character).

Avengers: Doomsday hits US theaters on December 18, and in UK cinemas on December 16. Get up to speed on Marvel Phase 6 with our guide on how to watch the Marvel movies in order.

Hideo Kojima has reviewed Clayface, and it's good news for the DCU horror movie – Kojima liked the film.

"Watched Clayface. I wasn't familiar with the character from DC, but I enjoyed the film. I've always loved the science fiction films of the 1950s and '60s, particularly those about lonely men who gradually transform into something monstrous through scientific experiments, accidents, clinical trials, and the like. Richard Matheson's novel The Shrinking Man (1956), and films such as The Fly (1958) and 4D Man (1959). The facial disfigurement also reminded me of Eyes Without a Face (1959), The Face of Another (1966), and The Skin I Live In (2011).

"As a body horror film, Clayface will undoubtedly be compared to The Fly (1986) and The Substance (2024)," he continued. "But this is the story of a method actor who can become anyone through his performances, only to suffer a disfiguring facial injury and eventually gain the extraordinary ability to physically transform into anyone. Whether you see it as the story of a man who takes his revenge and descends into villainy, or as a tragedy, changes the very face of the film. While I was there, I also picked up a reprint of the original theatrical pamphlet for The Man Who Stole the Sun."

Clayface follows Matt Hagen, a rising star actor who, after a drunken bad decision, is brutally disfigured by a mobster. Experimental treatment gives him his face back, but also gifts him gruesome shapeshifting powers.

A general rule of thumb with Kojima reviews is that, the longer the review, the more positive he feels about the movie. So, that means he's a fan of Clayface (compared to his very short Madame Web review, anyway…)

Clayface is in theaters now. For more, check out our own Clayface review, or our Clayface ending explained for a deep dive on the wild conclusion.

Avengers: Doomsday has rocketed to impressive pre-sales, and the upcoming Marvel movie is about to cross one significant milestone by making more money than the entire box office run of DCU mega-flop Supergirl.

Per Forbes, Avengers: Doomsday has already made over $125 million in pre-sales alone since tickets went on sale way back on August 14. This, incredibly, puts it on the cusp of surpassing the entire global box office run of this summer's Supergirl, which topped out at $126,466,532. Given it's been two days since that $125 million figure was reported, it's possible Doomsday has already blown past Supergirl, in fact.

By September, Doomsday had made over $50 million in pre-sales, all despite IMAX screens in most territories exclusively playing Dune 3. Though you can check the movie out on a Disney-certified Infinity Vision screen if you like. While many were sceptical of Doomsday's box office prospects as Marvel Studios scrambled to reconfigure The Kang Dynasty plans in the wake of the Jonathan Majors scandal, it's now undeniable that Doomsday will be a colossal hit. Whether it can surpass Spider-Man: Brand New Day's record-breaking success is another question.

Marvel fans got an extra taste of Avengers: Doomsday with Avengers: Endgame Encore. The re-release contains four new scenes, including a new ending to the movie featuring Loki, two mid-credits scenes (one of which revealed that Doom has abducted Bruce Banner), and a post-credits scene that seems to link Tony Stark and Victor Von Doom. A Disney Plus release has yet to be announced, though there is a landing page on the streaming service already.

The latest Doomsday tease came from an unlikely source: Pedro Pascal and Robert Downey Jr.'s Halloween costumes, with an Easter egg seemingly revealing that their characters went to M.I.T. together. New Doomsday footage released last week, meanwhile, has fans convinced that something is up with Steve Rogers, and it could have everything to do with Loki.

Avengers: Doomsday releases in US theaters on December 18, and in UK cinemas on December 16. Make sure you're up to speed on Marvel Phase 6 with our guide on how to watch the Marvel movies in order.

The race for the next James Bond is heating up, with four finalists currently being tested for the most coveted role in movies. One candidate is Slow Horses star Jack Lowden, but the Scottish actor recently threw cold water on the suggestion he will be the next 007.

Speaking to British GQ, Lowden was inevitably quizzed about being subject to the relentless Bond rumor mill, only to "suck" his teeth in response. "On this… It’s all very flattering. It’s nice to be mentioned – for any role – and I’m just not really going to add to the noise." British GQ described the response as a "bucket of cold water, poured with care."

Back in September, Lowden's Slow Horses co-star Gary Oldman said the next Bond had already been cast, pointedly adding that Lowden was on the shortlist. Oldman later walked back the comments on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, but where there's smoke there's fire, and numerous reports since have identified Lowden as one of the final four.

“It’s very nice, and Gary’s a sweetheart," Lowden said of Oldman's comments. "It's particularly lovely, coming from someone like him. But I don’t really listen to it. As a young male actor, generally, the minute you’re not playing a zany artist type, the minute you’re in a suit, people fling it at you."

The other Bond potentials reportedly include Callum Turner, Josh O'Connor, and a mystery fourth actor who has yet to be identified. While Lowden is something of a fan-favorite choice, having already played a British spy on the long-running Apple TV series Slow Horses, Lowden's many Apple TV commitments could be a potential hurdle to the star playing Bond. Not only is season 7 of Slow Horses in production for next year, but season 8 has already been confirmed, with Lowden's River Cartwright expected to appear in both (despite that season 6 cliffhanger). Lowden is also set to appear in Apple TV's series adaptation of Berlin Noir alongside Colin Firth, potentially leaving little time to play Bond.

If Lowden is cast as the next 007, the perfect Bond villain is sitting right there, as Lowden's real-life wife Saoirse Ronan has said she's "dead serious" about playing a Bond villain.

Slow Horses season 6 is currently streaming on Apple TV. For more, check out our ranking of the best James Bond movies.

A new Batman 2 leak has hit the internet, and it might confirm some fascinating details about the upcoming DC movie.

The leak comes courtesy of – surprisingly – a behind the scenes look at Heidi Klum's latest Halloween costume. Mike Marino's ProRenFX worked their magic for Klum's gruesome, severed hand look, and Marino is also working on The Batman 2 (and worked on the first film).

In the background of the makeup team's studio, a few intriguing details can be spotted. One is a container labeled "Zsaz," another labeled "Owl 3," another labeled "Koch," and finally a face mold that looks a lot like Brian Tyree Henry.

Now, persistent rumors have been circulating that Sebastian Stan is not playing Two-Face, as reported, but is instead playing Victor Zsasz – the terrifying, bald serial killer who keeps a tally of his victims on his body.

The facial mold that looks like Brian Tyree Henry, meanwhile, bears a strong resemblance to Two-Face. While the disfigurement doesn't look too extreme, his upper lip is seriously wounded in a pattern that mirrors the character's look in Batman: The Animated Series. This would suggest that it's Henry, not Stan, playing the iconic villain.

The Court of Owls – a sinister group of Gotham's elite who wear creepy owl masks and control the city from the shadows – has also been heavily speculated to be part of the film, and the "Owl" container seems to confirm they'll factor in somehow. Sebastian Koch, meanwhile, is part of the cast, and the container featuring his name suggests his mystery role will require prosthetics of some kind.

It's hard to know for sure without any further context, but it does seem a lot of interesting details have been exposed thanks to this new video.

The Batman 2 arrives on February 18, 2028. While you wait, check out our guide to all the most exciting upcoming movies for everything else that's on the way.

Robert Downey Jr. and Pedro Pascal spent Halloween dressed up as each other's Avengers: Doomsday characters. But that's not the headline here (although it certainly could be).

Instead, a Doctor Doom detail on Pedro Pascal's sweatshirt could clue us in further to the history between the new MCU supervillain and Reed Richards.

As seen below, Pascal's Doom sweatshirt sports an MIT logo with both Doom and Reed Richards adorning its emblem, perhaps suggesting they spent much of their college-age years together before growing apart and becoming bitter enemies.

Framing Doom and Richards, AKA Mr. Fantastic, as college rivals and mega brains is nothing new – and can be seen frequently in the pages of Marvel's comics.

But it certainly helps matters in the MCU. So far, we know precious little about how they are connected, and that always felt like one of Fantastic Four's missed opportunities last year. At once, it makes their rivalry more personal and tragic – and could sow the seeds for emotionally charged scenes between the pair in Avengers: Doomsday.

Doom was at least on the radar of Sue Storm in her role as leader of the U.N.-like Future Foundation, but the Latverian ruler was notably absent from the assembled nations in Earth-828's retro-futuristic 1960s.

The Fantastic Four post-credits scene at least brought Doom onto the scene, breaking into the group's headquarters and taking a keen interest in Reed and Sue's son, Franklin.

What happens next remains to be seen, but previous Doomsday footage has focused on the dynamic between Doom and Reed as a mutant-destroying Sentinel looms large in the distance. We bet they didn't teach that at MIT.

Avengers: Doomsday releases in UK cinemas on December 16 and in the US on December 18.

For more, we have guides on upcoming Marvel movies and how to watch the Marvel movies in order.

Avengers: Doomsday is positioned as Marvel's biggest movie ever. A major event in MCU history that will surpass even Endgame, with characters from multiple worlds coming together for an epic showdown with a returning Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom. Everyone from the Fox-era X-Men to the Fantastic Four will be there, proving the crossover invitations reached every corner of the multiverse.

But before there was Doomsday, there was Spider-Man: No Way Home. That film brought together different eras of Marvel just like Doomsday, except it focused strictly on Peter Parker – even as it unleashed the multiversal mayhem that has come to define this phase of the MCU.

No Way Home was Marvel's first blowout success post-Endgame, grossing almost $2 billion amid the COVID pandemic (Far From Home, the first Marvel movie released after Endgame, grossed $1.1 billion, in comparison). Obviously, Spider-Man himself is a huge draw. Just look at the mega-success of this year's Spider-Man: Brand New Day for all the evidence you need. But it wasn't only the promise of three cross-timeline Spideys uniting that made No Way Home a success – it was its focused, character-driven storyline.

Ready Peter 1

While the film brings together three different Peter Parkers from three different film franchises, its focus remains squarely on Tom Holland's Peter. No Way Home picks up in the aftermath of Quentin Beck exposing Peter's identity at the end of Far From Home. The MCU is often sorely lacking in consequences, but this is one plot wrinkle that actually stuck: Peter's life – and by extension, the lives of his friends and family – is suffering from the world believing him to be a murderer.

It's not the fate of the world but something as seemingly mundane as rejected college applications that kickstarts the whole plot, too. Peter seeks Doctor Strange's help after he, Ned Leeds, and MJ are rejected from MIT, then inadvertently corrupts the sorcerer's spell out of concern his loved ones might forget him (in some bleak foreshadowing). It's this corrupted spell that opens the multiversal door to a rogues' gallery of iconic Spider-Man villains, beginning with Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus.

Even then, though, the film doesn't merely pit Holland's Peter against a bunch of villains he's never met. Instead, the focus shifts to Peter's attempts to redeem each baddie, so that, when they return to their rightful universes, they might not end up dead. Things seem to be going well, until Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin throws the plan into chaos by rallying his fellow villains, escaping, and, in the process, mortally wounding Aunt May. Before she dies, she imparts those famous words to Peter: "With great power, there must also come great responsibility." This sends Peter down a dark, grief-fuelled spiral (and who could blame him?), and it's at this point in the film that the other Peters arrive – long after this emotional, character-driven story has been firmly established.

Multiverse of madness

It's undeniably fun to see Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield back as Peter Parker. No Way Home does revel in it, too, yet the first meeting between the three Peters is a sombre one. Peter 2 (Maguire) and Peter 3 (Garfield) share their own losses with Peter 1, helping him to come to terms with the death of Aunt May. It's genuinely heart-warming to watch the trio bond in this way and become true friends, rather than arbitrarily pitting them against each other as seems to be happening in the Avengers vs. X-Men showdown glimpsed in the Doomsday trailer.

Even the final battle – traditionally the weakest part of a Marvel movie – is grounded in emotion over spectacle. Both Maguire and Garfield's versions of Peter Parker get to have a moment with their own villains: Maguire with Doctor Octopus and Garfield with Jamie Foxx's Electro. And who could forget the moving moment when Garfield's Peter catches MJ and saves her, after what happened to Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man 2?

Then, the trio comes together to stop Green Goblin, with Maguire and Garfield's Spideys stopping Holland's from killing him in his blind rage. All that multiversal chaos comes down to a fistfight, and it's so much better than a massive battle.

The film culminates with its most emotional moment yet, when Peter 1 and Strange are forced to erase all memory of Holland's Peter Parker from his loved ones. It's a gut-punch when Holland's Peter walks away from Ned and MJ and chooses an isolated life in a tiny apartment, which rolls into Brand New Day. Without No Way Home's story, which put Holland's Peter at its heart at every turn, making us care deeply for this incarnation of the wall-crawler and his troubles, it's unlikely Brand New Day – a very grounded, street-level story focusing even more heavily on Peter's state of mind – would have soared to its record-breaking heights at the box office.

Doomsday approaches

Hopefully, Avengers: Doomsday can learn from its multiversal predecessor. The multiverse gives huge opportunities, but it's a character-focused storyline, rather than a crossover that's busy smashing action figures together, that will make the film great.

The Marvel Phase 6 film is bringing together a fascinating mix of characters, and it would be a massive waste if this cast didn't get to have any real, emotional moments with each other when there is so much potential in Downey Jr.'s return following Iron Man's sacrifice, or the comeback of Steve Rogers after his bittersweet goodbye.

So, while No Way Home surely appears on the Doomsday watchlist for its multiversal aspect, it's the character-driven story that Doomsday should be emulating.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is available to stream now on Disney Plus, ahead of the release of Avengers: Doomsday on December 18.

Look ahead with our list of upcoming Marvel movies and check out how to watch the Marvel movies in order ahead of your next rewatch. See you next week as we revisit Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Despite it releasing before he took over as DC Studios co-CEO, James Gunn has confirmed that his movie The Suicide Squad is DCU canon. So, unsurprisingly, there have been a few questions about how this works, especially as Superman is mentioned in the 2021 movie.

During Gunn's new The Suicide Squad: Is it Canon? Podcast, co-host and Peacemaker's John Economos actor Steve Agee read out a question from a fan asking if The Suicide Squad really is canon to the DCU, did Bloodsport really shoot Superman. DC fans will remember that the 2021 movie finds Bloodsport sitting in jail due to shooting and taking down the hero with a Kryptonite bullet.

Gunn answered, "There's a couple of things potentially that get in the way of being canon. One is time." Superman is set in 2025, four whole years after The Suicide Squad was released and presumably takes place. However, at the start of the first DCU Chapter One movie, we learn that Supermna has only been in commission for three years. To fix that, Gunn says he would have to push The Suicide Squad up to 2023 or 2024. " I don't think that's the biggest deal in the world," added the director.

The other issue is that at the start of Superman, which Gunn says is "most definitively canon," we learn that he has just been defeated for the very first time by Lex Luthor Ultraman. So, if that is Superman's first defeat, what happened with Bloodsport? "I don't necessarily think that flying around, not only perhaps taking your flying dog out for a walk or whatever he was doing and being taken down with a Kryptonite bullet and going to the hospital is a battle," explains Gunn. "It's not necessarily defeat. He was just shot."

However, it sounds as though Gunn is growing tired of dealing with dates. "People are always asking me about timelines. I think we have to chill out a little with the timelines," stated the DC boss. "It's not possible to make things perfectly line up."

The next DCU movie is Man of Tomorrow, arriving July 9, 2027. For more, keep up with all the upcoming DC movies and TV shows on the way.

After setting the record straight that his 2021 movie The Suicide Squad is DCU canon, James Gunn says Margot Robbie could return as Harley Quinn, that is, if she wants to.

"Margot Robbie is one of my favorite actors to work with… I don't know where Margot's head is with all of this. But also, Harley is a character I'm almost certainly going to use in the DCU, and if Margot wants to play her, then I'll bend over backwards to explain that in the world," said Gunn on his The Suicide Squad: Is it Canon? podcast. "But if she doesn't, then I can go with somebody else where I don't have to be attached to Harley in [The Suicide Squad]."

Robbie first suited up as DC villain Harley Quinn in David Ayer's 2016 movie Suicide Squad, and then led her own movie in 202's Birds of Prey, before returning in 2021 for Gunn's sequel, The Suicide Squad. It wouldn't be too surprising to see Robbie return, as her The Suicide Squad co-star and Peacemaker actor John Cena has already been introduced to the DCU, as Peacemaker season 2 is canon and takes place after the events of Superman.

Even though Gunn became the co-CEO of DC Studios the year after The Suicide Squad hit screens, he is keen to include the project in his new world. "I think that The Suicide Squad is within the canon of the DCU. It's decided," said Gunn earlier on the Podcast. "I'd say we have one small asterisk, which is: what exactly is the future of Harley Quinn?"

The issue with adding Quinn is that Gunn would also have to find a new Joker, since the Batman villain is to blame for Quinn's creation. "I think Harley is one of the most difficult things in this to justify as being canon in the DCU. Harley's relationship to the Joker, specifically," said Gunn. "We haven't established the Joker yet in the DCU at all. We've established Batman. We see him in Creature and Commandos for a glimpse. But we don't know if Joker exists yet, and obviously, Joker is a part of Harley's past."

However, the DCU has yet to find its live-action Bat, though Gunn says Batman will be cast soon, ahead of the heroes' first DCU Chapter One movie, The Brave and the Bold. Who knows, perhaps the Joker or even Harley will make an appearance then.

The next DCU movie is Man of Tomorrow, arriving July 9, 2027. For more, keep up with all the upcoming DC movies and TV shows on the way.

James Gunn has set out to clear up the DCU's canon once again – but it's only given us more questions.

In his new podcast, The Suicide Squad: Is it Canon?, Gunn came to the conclusion that the film is mostly canon, and is in fact the DCU's first canon film.

"I think that The Suicide Squad is within the canon of the DCU. It's decided. I'd say we have one small asterisk, which is what exactly is the future of Harley Quinn? I want to be given a little leeway with this by the fans, because I'm not sure exactly how that's going to manifest itself.

"But other than that, I think that we can pretty much say the entire movie is canon," he continued. "I don't think there's a problem. Now, maybe somebody's going to come to me on Threads – and I accept the challenges in trying to answer them – with something that can't be canon within this movie, and that's okay, because we're going to make mistakes, we're going to make mistakes in this movie, we're going to make mistakes in other movies. But for the most part, I think that it actually fits much more easily into canon than Peacemaker season 1 does. So, I think that we can actually say that yes, not only is The Suicide Squad canon, but it's the first canon film in the DCU, and that everybody should go watch it right now on HBO Max."

That raises a lot of questions – The Suicide Squad takes place in the old DCEU, not the new DCU, and Gunn has previously said that Blue Beetle is the first DCU character and Superman is the first DCU film. Plus, there's a chance that Harley Quinn might change if Margot Robbie doesn't return in the future.

"I love [Robbie] as Harley, I don't know if she wants to play Harley again. She may be over that," Gunn admitted candidly elsewhere in the podcast, before explaining that he would very likely use the character again, and, "if Margot wants to play her, I'll bend over backwards to explain that in the world. But if she doesn't, right, then I might go with somebody else, where I don't have to be attached to what happens to Harley in this movie. That's really the situation."

Still, though, the movie otherwise does slot into canon fairly neatly, as it introduces us to Peacemaker and involves the death of Rick Flag Jr., which sets up Rick Flag Sr.'s storyline in Peacemaker season 2 and beyond.

In the same podcast, Gunn also revealed that the DCU Batman will be cast soon, and he'll be around the same age as Superman.

The next DCU movie is Man of Tomorrow, which arrives on July 9, 2027. While you wait, check out our guide to all the upcoming DC movies and TV shows for everything else that's in the works.

James Gunn has teased that the DCU Batman is closer than we think.

While we just got a DCU movie set in Gotham City, Clayface, Batman was conspicuously absent, and there has been no word on who might be in the running to play the Caped Crusader.

"It won't be too long before we're casting Batman, who isn't cast yet, by the way," Gunn shared on his The Suicide Squad 'Is It Canon?' Podcast, explaining that previously casting someone for a different role would not rule them out of any future roles. "All the people thinking he's gonna show up in this or that, it's all bullshit. But when we do cast the DCU Batman, which isn't very far away, if I gave somebody a day role in Suicide Squad that's gonna be the best Batman, I'm not gonna rule him out from that. I want to get everybody into account.

"One of the things that excites me about Batman is being able to pick a Batman who's actually the best actor for that role," he continued. "Supermans have always been chosen based on who the best actor for that role is, and for some reason Batmans are always chosen as movie stars."

When asked if he takes age into account, Gunn explained: "Definitely, that's a huge thing. People are always looking for little hints about casting of Batman. Roughly, Batman and Superman are around the same age. I don't think that they're drastically different ages. They're future best pals, contemporaries."

Superman is in his early 30s in the 2025 movie, so we can expect a Batman in the same age bracket. Originally, the DCU's Batman movie, The Brave and the Bold, was announced as a Damian Wayne movie – in the comics, Damian is Bruce Wayne's biological son, and he arrives later in Bruce's crime-fighting career. Whether the film has moved away from the Damian storyline or it will simply involve a younger Bruce remains to be seen.

The next DCU movie is Man of Tomorrow, which releases in theaters on July 9, 2027. While you wait for the DCU Batman to arrive, check out our guide to all the upcoming DC movies and TV shows.

James Gunn is going to clear up more DCU canon questions.

Since the DCU reboot, which replaced the now-defunct DCEU, there have been some lingering questions about what is and isn't canon. That's because, while the DCEU projects no longer count, some of them – like Peacemaker and The Suicide Squad – have aspects that carried over into the new DCU.

"To celebrate DC Super-Villain month, we've decided to lay down the law on whether The Suicide Squad is canon in the DCU - and discuss other behind-the-scenes fun facts along the way in a new Official The Suicide Squad 'Is It Canon?' Podcast," Gunn shared on social media, complete with a trailer for the podcast.

To celebrate DC Super-Villain month, we've decided to lay down the law on whether The Suicide Squad is canon in the DCU - and discuss other behind-the-scenes fun facts along the way in a new Official The Suicide Squad "Is It Canon?" Podcast.

— @jamesgunn.bsky.social (@jamesgunn.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-10-29T15:26:25.825Z

Gunn previously released a similar podcast for Peacemaker, aptly titled Peacemaker: The Official Podcast with James Gunn.

Gunn has said before that he wants to reassess The Suicide Squad and Blue Beetle (the first DCU character) to decide what is and isn't canon.

"I've been thinking about this a lot in regards to The Suicide Squad & Blue Beetle and I've been meaning to rewatch both with an eye towards that knowing what I know now almost three years into the DCU (with a couple more years of scripts being actively filmed or created)," he said. "Maybe after MoT [Man of Tomorrow] Jenn [Jennifer Holland] & Steve [Agee] & I can get together for a special couple podcasts to discuss. What do you guys think is potentially or definitely NOT canon from TSS & BB?"

We'll only have to wait a little while longer to find out what is canon from The Suicide Squad – the one-episode podcast debuts on October 30.

Until then, check out our guide to all the upcoming DC movies and TV shows for everything else the DCU has in store.

The Hunger Games franchise is so back as new prequel movie The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is on track to open to the franchise's best in over 10 years.

Tickets went on sale on October 28, but presales have been going so well that box office trackers Global Box Office and Empire City Box Office estimate the movie is set to open to over $100 million. Empire City added, "$100m looks like a virtual lock for opening weekend. No idea yet how high this can go, but it's not slowing down."

Beyond the figures, the movie has attracted extremely positive first reactions, with early viewers calling it the Rogue One or Andor of the franchise.

Currently, the franchise's biggest opening goes to 2013 sequel The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which opened to $158 million and went on to gross $865 million worldwide. The Hunger Games (2012), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014), and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015) all opened to over $100 million.

However, when Lionsgate attempted to bring the franchise back in 2023 with the President Snow-focused prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, the movie opened to $44.6 million, earning $347.6 million in total worldwide over its entire run.

So what makes the upcoming prequel different? Well, Sunrise on the Reaping follows Haymitch Abernathy, previously played by Woody Harrelson in the original saga, who is a much more popular character. Set 24 years before the first film, the movie follows 16-year-old Haymitch, played by Joseph Zada, as he is drafted into the 50th Hunger Games. But as we all know, the Quarter Quells are no ordinary games, so to mark the second quarter, the game makers raise the stakes and send in double the players.

The movie also stars a band of well-known actors amongst the target audience, such as Ghostbusters: Afterlife's McKenna Grace as Maysilee Donner, Stranger Things' Maya Hawke as Wiress, and The Karate Kid: Legend's Ben Wang as Wyatt Callow. The rest of the star-studded cast includes Ralph Fiennes as President Snow, Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket, Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee, Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman, Glenn Close as Drusilla Sickle, and Lili Taylor as Mags.

The Hunger Games' leads Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson are also set to make a cameo as Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, too

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping hits theaters on November 20. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the other most exciting upcoming movies of the year, or the major movie release dates still to come.

First reactions to The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping are in, and they're very positive.

The new film is a prequel to the original trilogy of movies and follows Haymitch Abernathy, eventual mentor of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, when he is forced to compete in the Second Quarter Quell – a deadlier version of the Hunger Games to mark their 50th year.

Early viewers are praising the film's themes, its lead performance from Haymitch actor Joseph Zada, and the visual style.

"#TheHungerGames Sunrise on the Reaping is the Rogue One/Andor of the franchise," says critic Griffin Schiller. "A sobering, yet powerful story of devastating loss and the necessary cost of rebellion for a sunrise we may never see. As a massive fan of the series and especially this book, I couldn't have asked for a more perfect adaptation. Francis Lawrence beautifully captures the invigorating spark of revolution and the tragedy of Haymitch's journey, culminating in a resounding gut punch."

"The Hunger Games franchise remains a favorite. THE HUNGER GAMES: SUNRISE ON THE REAPING rocks a ton of stunning craftsmanship, yet another phenomenal cast, and an exhilarating narrative that serves as a powerful reminder that nothing is inevitable and it is possible to break a bad machine," says Collider's Perri Nemiroff.

"One of the biggest highlights? Joseph Zada," she continues. "I had high hopes for him after watching We Were Liars, but he had my jaw on the floor time and time again during Sunrise on the Reaping. His ability to capture Haymitch’s warmth and charm and then weave that into the rage and heartbreak the Hunger Games sparks is superb. SO much of this movie is on his shoulders, and he soars tackling every ounce of it. This is only the beginning for Zada."

"The rebellion is sparking with SUNRISE ON THE REAPING. Francis Lawrence continues to breathe new life into this world. The unique production design doesn’t let familiar beats get too dull. Joseph Zada is heartbreakingly radiant as Haymitch. A star is born role," says Next Best Picture's Lauren LaMagna.

"The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is a worthy addition to the franchise. Casting is phenomenal (Joseph Zada couldn't be better), it looks and feels terrifyingly real, and it bridges the gap perfectly between the original stories and Ballad. A from me," says journalist Nina Starner.

"THE HUNGER GAMES: SUNRISE ON THE REAPING feels like the follow-up to Catching Fire I have always wanted. It's a near-perfect Hunger Games movie that is more brutal than you could imagine. Joseph Zada embodies a more hopeful Haymitch that I was enamoured to see evolve into the Haymitch we know and love," says DawsOnScreen. "The film's use of colour, cinematography and effects is immense and really brings this arena to life but I can't stop thinking about how incredible Jesse Plemons is as Plutarch. At almost 3 hours, this flies by and fans of the Hunger Games have got another guaranteed hit on their hands"

"We've seen this all before, but #sunriseonthereaping stellar third act pulls the rug out underneath you," says Film Hounds's Gavin Spoors. "Anchored by terrific performances (Zada is a star), this emotional thriller nails the themes of the cost of revolution and how we all need to play our part."

"SUNRISE ON THE REAPING is easily the best film in the Hunger Games franchise. Joseph Zada is electrifying as Haymitch, and the cast is true to the characters we’re introduced to in the book. Filled with all-fire, it's a MUST-SEE in theaters," says The Nerds of Color's Nikita Francois.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping hits theaters on November 20. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the other most exciting upcoming movies of the year, or the major movie release dates still to come.

Over two years after Deadpool & Wolverine hit theaters, Disney has finally revealed the true budget for one of Marvel's most profitable movies ever.

During the company's latest earnings report (via Forbes), Disney stated that the 2024 movie went over budget, bringing the total cost to $556.8 million. Added costs came from disruptions such as the 2023 strikes, which paused production halfway through shooting. However, due to the movie being shot at Pinewood Studios in the UK, Disney was reimbursed over $110 million in tax credits, lowering the total cost to $446.1 million.

That's still a pretty hefty price tag, and it means that Deadpool and Wolverine is Marvel Studios' most expensive movie ever. To put that into perspective, Avengers: Endgame is thought to have cost up to $400 million to make, with Avengers: Age of Ultron and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness not far behind.

The movie united Ryan Reynolds' potty-mouthed Deadpool and a variant of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine as they teamed up to save Deadpool's universe from being destroyed. As well as a rather iconic dance sequence and a ton of gags, the movie also welcomes back a bunch of original mutants who make surprise cameos, and even saw Channing Tatum finally suit up as Gambit, all of which caused fans to flock to the cinema in droves.

Alas, it all worked out: Deadpool & Wolverine grossed a whopping $1.34 billion worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. The mutant team-up is perhaps also to thank for Marvel's resurgence, as it was the first Marvel Studios movie to gross over $1 billion after the pandemic. This year, Spider-Man: Brand New Day became the highest-grossing MCU movie of all time domestically, pulling in $958.7 million in the US. But of course that was made in partnership with Sony.

Until very recently, Deadpool & Wolverine held the title as the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, but was knocked off its throne by Christopher Nolan's ancient Greek epic The Odyssey, which has earned over $1.8 billion after hitting screens this summer.

Deadpool & Wolverine is available to stream on Disney Plus now. Next up for the MCU is Avengers: Doomsday, which hits theaters on December 18. For more, check out how to watch the Marvel movies in order, and keep up with upcoming Marvel movies on the way.

One Clayface fan has come up with a theory that might help explain Matt Hagen's downfall.

Spoilers for the film follow, so turn back now if you're not up to date on the new DCU movie!

In the film, Matt Hagen is given experimental treatment by Dr. Caitlyn Corr after he is horrifically disfigured by a gangster. The treatment heals his wounds, but also gives him grotesque shapeshifting powers.

But, Caitlyn developed the treatment by first using her own DNA. As Matt descends further into villainy as he embarks on a brutal revenge quest, he also gets more and more obsessed with Caitlyn. For a full breakdown, read our Clayface ending explained.

"I have a wild theory that it's the nanites who are attracted to her, not Matt himself as Caitlyn have been experimenting on the nanites by regularly using her DNA on the nanites before Matt came to her," speculates one fan.

Another agrees: "I actually believe this theory, and if it's true, it makes Caitlyn's role in Matt's downfall WAY darker than people realize. She had been experimenting with the nanites using her own DNA before Matt ever entered the picture. So what if the nanites were already conditioned to recognize her as their original template, and Matt's obsession with her was the technology influencing him rather than genuine love?

"Think about it: every time his body healed, reshaped itself, or reacted to her, we assumed it was Matt making those choices. But what if the nanites were driving his attachment all along? What if Matt never truly fell in love with Caitlyn, but was biologically programmed to crave her? That would mean Caitlyn didn’t just create Clayface. She might have accidentally created a monster that could never stop coming back to her."

It's certainly a creepy theory – though it does seem like it's Matt's own flaws that lead to his downfall rather than an issue with his DNA, since he chooses bloody revenge over starting a fresh life.

Clayface is in theaters now. For more, check out our Clayface review or our guide to all the upcoming DC movies and TV shows.