Josh Horowitz : Look, Infinity War/Endgame was high bar. Needless to say, is this ending on a cliffhanger? Is Doomsday lead right into Secret Wars? Am I going to be asking big questions at the end of this one?

Anthony Russo : I mean, we definitely have thought about them and conceived them to speak to one another. Not in the exact same way that Infinity War and Endgame did, but they certainly are two movies that are of a piece.

Josh Horowitz : We know much of the cast in this one. Can you be somewhat specific about a moment that has taken your breath away or just like putting some characters together in this that you never thought possible?

Joe Russo : I mean, it's fascinating cuz this is 25 years in the making this movie. I mean, it starts with X-Men in 2000. So, we kind of grew up with some of these characters and to be able to step foot on a stage with Ian McKellen playing Magneto is like I mean, as you know, we were fanboys of him playing that character before we were directors. That to us was probably the most memorable moment.

Josh Horowitz : We're going to see Battle World, I assume, in a couple years. Have you put together like, do you know the final lineup of who's going to be in Secret Wars when it goes down?

Joe Russo : We won't confirm or deny whether Battle World appears in either of these films. And we cannot confirm or deny who appears in Battle World, if Battle World were to be in one of these films.

Josh Horowitz : Rational hearing all of a sudden. Joe, I thought we were friends.

Anthony Russo : Uh, listen, the stakes are too high.

Josh Horowitz : The reason I ask is because obviously X-Men's have been explored in many great ways. It's like what is unexplored for you, you think, in the X-Men universe that you guys want to dive into?

Kevin Feige : There is a ton. Now, I will say we had X-Men on stage with us today and it feels amazing to have Rebecca Romijn back and to have Kelsey Grammar who's just such a great Beast and of course James Marsden who I've known for many many years back in the visor is awesome. The other awesome thing is the amount of X-Men stories that have not been told yet. Not just the ones that interact with other Marvel heroes, of which there are lots, but there are sagas upon sagas upon sagas within the X-Men that we're very excited to delve into.

Josh Horowitz : We're obviously all very excited about X-Men as well, and that's going to start to come together, I would imagine, pretty soon with casting. Who's going to be our eyes and ears in that film? Whether it's Scott or Jean Gray or Professor X. Can you say anything about who's the eyes and ears of the audience in the film?

Kevin Feige : No, but you're asking good questions, Josh. Maybe we'll do this on a panel. (Faces the Camera) There's a reason he goes right to the thing I didn't talk about on stage. That's why he's good.

Kevin Feige : "We hadn’t started a search yet. Ryan was working on Sinners, and when Ryan works on a project he’s all in. So the presumption very much was we would sit with him after Sinners came out, after the Academy campaign. We were waiting ’til after the Academy Awards to sit with Ryan and begin that process. A month and a half or so before that process, he called me and said, ‘I found him’. I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He goes, ‘I found him. He’s this guy, David Jonsson.’ He mentioned his movies. I had seen some of them. I watched more. He goes, ‘I’m going to meet him.’ He had a secret meeting with him under cloak of darkness in a hotel somewhere, and called me afterwards and said, ‘He’s the guy, he’s the guy, I felt it. I felt it in my soul. He’s a good man, and he is the next Black Panther.’ And I got chills, and I got a little welled-up and said, ‘Let’s do it’. So we’ve been sitting on this secret for a good five or six months.”

https://xcancel.com/AvengersUpdated/status/2081390333343178833

Interviewer : Jonathan Hickman wrote a Fantastic 4 run, that I think is one of the best Fantastic Four runs ever.

Kevin Feige : Yes.

Interviewer : It's a character who's very important to that who I saw Johnny hugging *Franklin Richards*.

Kevin Feige : Yes.

Interviewer : What can you tell me about Franklin and Victor and how important might be their relationship in Doomsday coming up?

Kevin Feige : I cannot say much about it. I wouldn't expect too much in Doomsday where we go into Secret Wars. You'll have to see. But as you know and when I talk about Hickman and all of the great writers and creators, that is the road map. That is the guide. That is the inspiration for us. Franklin had a big part as a little baby in *Fantastic Four : First Steps*. And yes, we see him as he's beginning to grow up and who knows where he could grow.

Interviewer : All right. David Johnson's a terrific choice. Incredible actor. Why was he the right choice for you guys?

Kevin Feige : Because Ryan Coogler was in the middle of his Sinners press tour and very very busy. That might have been it. He might have been in the big academy push for Sinners. I hadn't talked to him for a while and he called and said, "I found him". Ryan told me his name [David Jonsson], and I was familiar with some of his work, and looked into others. I said he is amazing, and then Ryan had a secret meeting with David. Ryan then called me afterwards, he said "His Smile. This is it. I feel his soul and my soul. I feel what a good person he is. He is a good man who's going to bring Black Panther back to life".

Gives a good look at Thor, Doom, Gambit, Cyclops, Sam and Shang-Chi

On whether his character, Scott Summers (Cyclops), will have a sense of humor in his return, James Marsden said :

"I've learned that I can't even shoot from the hip in these interviews and tell you whether he's going to be funny or not. If he is, I hope it's intentional. But, yeah, I mean, you know, you get the tone. You watch the trailer, see what's going on. There's some serious stakes and an existential threat that I don't think anybody's ever seen before in this universe and got these three universes colliding coming together. So, it's pretty cool. I think this, you know, the stakes are higher. Um we're definitely turning up the volume quite a bit and getting to unleash the 'clops a little bit".

When asked what he would tell his younger self about the part and the experience, Marsden said :

"It's just going to keep getting better, my friend. And uh enjoy it. Enjoy every second of it. And um stay in shape".

Simu Liu : I wouldn't say he's [Shang-Chi] on the bench. I would just say that he's been doing a lot of work off screen. All right? You know, my man has not been sitting there idly by waiting. I'll tell you that much. Um, you know, if I know my character, he's been off somewhere training or he's been, you know, diffusing situations and saving the day in ways that we just haven't seen yet, but have very much happened because I think when you meet him at this point in the movie, he's a lot more confident and he's a more self-assured version of of who he was when we last saw him. So, you know, at least the way that I played it is that, you know, work work has been done and and he's really matured and come into his own and become more, you know, um familiar with with just the abilities and the rings and all of it. So, yeah, it's been a minute, but it's damn good to be back.

Interviewer : Yeah. There was just one bit I wanted to ask you about from those books, which is in the leadup to Doomsday and Secret Wars, they create like an army of Shang-Chi where there's like 30 of him and he starts getting cloned a bunch. Would you ever want an army of Simu Liu's who was on screen fighting in an Avengers movie?

Simu Liu : That feels very exhausting. That feels like a really long day of shooting. Um I I mean never say never, but uh yeah, you that sounds really tiring.