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Credit: 20th Century Studios
Today ended up being a big day for Avengers: Doomsday, one of the most highly-anticipated upcoming Marvel movies. Marvel Studios slowly unveiled the cast of Doomsday through showing the names of its actors on chairs, and it turns out that this movie will be a major platform for the X-Men to shine. Following the reveal of Kelsey Grammer reprising Beast, which follows his return to the role in The Marvels, more actors from the Fox-era of X-Men movies have been announced for Doomsday, including Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen.
I was already pretty excited for Avengers: Doomsday, much of which is because I’m intrigued to see what’s done with Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom. However, hearing so many actors who’ve played mutant heroes and villains in the past will also show up has me even pumped about the 2026 flick. Here’s who we can expect to see in Doomsday X-Men-wise:
- Patrick Stewart – Professor X
- Alan Cumming – Nightcrawler
- Rebecca Romijn – Mystique
Some of these people already have MCY experience, like Patrick Stewart appearing in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Channing Tatum finally getting to portray Gambit in Deadpool & Wolverine after the character’s solo movie was scrapped. Others, like Ian McKellen and James Marsden, haven’t played their characters in well over a decade, if not longer. Alan Cumming takes the prize for the longest gap in reprising his role, as he only ever played Nightcrawler, a.k.a. Kurt Wagner, in 2003’s X2: X-Men United.
Avengers: Doomsday may technically be spotlighting Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, but with the amount of X-Men actors confirmed to appear, this might as well count partly as an X-Men movie, right? Still, it’s not surprising that so many of these heroes and villains will appear. The opening up of the Marvel multiverse has allowed for mutants from other realities to appear. Not only that, but mutants have also been introduced into the main MCU reality through Iman Vellani’s Ms. Marvel and Tenoch Huerta’s Namor, the latter of whom is also confirmed to appear in Doomsday.
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Keep in mind that just because these actors are all returning for Avengers: Doomsday doesn’t mean they’ll be playing the same versions of their characters from the older X-Men movies. Just like how the Beast we saw in The Marvels was clearly not the same one from X-Men: The Last Stand, the Professor X, Magneto, Nightcrawler, Mystique and Cyclops appearing could be from other corners of the Marvel multiverse. Maybe they even all live in the same universe as the new Beast. I think it’s probably safe to say, though that the Gambit appearing in Doomsday will be the same one who debuted in Deadpool & Wolverine.
I’m looking forward to seeing how these X-Men characters fit into Avengers; Doomsday when it opens in theaters on May 1, 2026. Meanwhile, remember that you can use your Disney+ subscription to stream the X-Men movies and nearly the entirety of the MCU.
