The Russo brothers have shared a teasing photo from the Avengers: Doomsday set, alongside the caption: “look hard.”
The monochrome image, below, shows one of the brothers sat in a director’s chair facing away from the camera, surrounded by objects that look to have been carefully positioned to resemble a series of letters.
If this sounds familiar, well, the Russo Brothers shared a very similar photo — monochrome, with one of the brothers in a director’s chair, surrounding by objects that look to resemble letters — with the exact same caption back in September 2018, during the production of Avengers: Endgame.
Back then, fans deduced the movie’s name from the objects in the photo, which had been positioned to resemble the letters A and E. But we already know the name of Avengers: Doomsday now — so, what are the Russos up to this time?
Discussing the image on reddit, fans believe there’s an obvious A and X on either side of the new photo, with potentially a V shape in the middle. What could this mean? Well, many have surmised that the photo is teasing an “AvX” battle — Avengers v X-Men — which we already know is a strong possibility.
Of course, Marvel has officially announced numerous members of the Fox-era X-Men films as part of the Avengers: Doomsday cast, though the exact nature of their role in the movie’s plot hasn’t been disclosed. All we know for certain is that Patrick Stewart will once again reprise his role as Professor X, alongside Kelsey Grammer’s Beast, James Marsden’s Cyclops, Rebecca Romijn’s Mystique, and Ian McKellen’s Magneto.
However, thanks to comments from chatty Nightcrawler actor Alan Cumming, it sounds like the Avengers and X-Men do indeed face off against each other (Cumming previously discussed being in a fight with Pedro Pascal’s Mr. Fantastic, though later suggested that due to the amount of green screen shooting involved, he was no longer certain).
Such a face-off would perhaps make sense, if the Avengers arrived within the X-Men universe and were perceived to be a threat — especially if Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom is involved, and manipulating one team against the other. We’ve already seen a character travel over to the X-Men universe, too — Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau ended up there alongside Beast at the end of The Marvels.
So, is this what the Russo brothers are now teasing? Or is there even more to the image than expected? It seems unlikely at this point that Doomsday might get a last-minute name change to Avengers vs. X-Men, though some fans have suggested the movie’s story, which will continue in 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars, still seems too big for just two films.
Could we see a third Avengers movie, turning this latest crop of blockbusters into a full trilogy? Alas, this also does seem unlikely — especially as Disney replaced a spare 2027 movie release date it had reserved for Marvel this week with the freshly-announced Simpsons Movie 2.
Still, we know Marvel has big plans for X-Men in the future. Following the events of Secret Wars, Marvel boss Kevin Feige has said that a semi-rebooted timeline will see a new, younger X-Men team come to the fore, in a fresh X-Men movie set to be directed by Thunderbolts*/The New Avengers’ Jake Schreier. Hopefully we find out the true meaning of the Russo brothers’ tease before the arrival of that.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
