Another Red Flag About ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Has Popped Up

There are enough concerns about Avengers: Doomsday already where it doesn’t need anything else spread around that sounds questionable, but a new report from a cast member raises yet another red flag about the production.

This new bit comes from Nightcrawler actor Alan Cumming, who previously spoiled that he would be fighting the Fantastic Four at one point during the movie, indicating a major X-Men vs. FF plot point. Now, he’s talking about how Doomsday was filmed, which may not be a spoiler, but it does sound…rather bad. Here he is via GoldDerby:

“I did the entire film in isolation. Lots of green screen, face replacement. They even gave characters fake names. I don’t know who I was acting with half the time.”

While it’s not unusual for actors in blockbusters to be forced to do weird things like pretend they’re on alien planets as they traipse around green screens or act opposite tennis balls on sticks, the idea of a character doing his entire part in complete isolation does come off as rather bizarre. As in, they couldn’t even get all the returning X-Men in the same room? Or with any other members of the cast? Come on.

The other X-Men returning, that we know about, are Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, Ian McKellen’s Magneto, Rebecca Romijn’s Mystique and James Marsden’s Cyclops. You can count Channing Tatum’s Gambit if you want, but he’s returning from Deadpool and Wolverine, not the FOX X-Men era. Back in July, we heard Rebecca Romijn not even knowing whether or not she was done shooting the film:

“The script hasn’t — they haven’t finished writing it. It’s been very, very fun, and we don’t know yet. They keep everything very close to the vest themselves in an effort to keep everything under wraps.”

The impression I’m getting here is that the X-Men are probably not a major part of the film and may be relegated to some universe-hopping cameo fight instead. I mean, how involved can you be with these kinds of comments about filming?

There are plenty of other things to worry about with Avengers: Doomsday, the odd decision to bring back Robert Downey Jr, the lack of half the original Avengers, the strange mix of cast members including these old X-Men, Thunderbolts and some characters that have been sidelined for years like Shang-Chi. It’s also about who’s missing like The Hulk, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch, Doctor Strange and many others in favor of more minor characters. Then there’s this constant refrain that the script keeps being written as the movie is shooting which isn’t wholly unheard of in Hollywood productions, but we keep hearing James Gunn over in the DCU saying that he will not move forward with a project until he has a good script in hand. Marvel does not appear to subscribe to that.

So, if you’re expecting some huge role for the old X-Men in Doomsday, I wouldn’t hold your breath.

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