Avengers: Doomsday Brings the X-Men Into Marvel's Universe

The X-Men are joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the first step comes in Avengers: Doomsday, which premieres in theatres on December 18.

Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, said bringing the mutant team into the franchise with this film "just felt right." He called it "the fun way to culminate a quarter-century of storytelling," in remarks published by Deadline on November 15, 2026. Feige has a personal link to the mutants. He was an associate producer on X-Men, the 2000 film that started the modern superhero wave.

The film is directed by the Russo brothers. In the story, heroes from several Earths unite against Doctor Doom, played by Robert Downey Jr., as the multiverse begins to collapse. That scale is why the studio has been able to bring in characters from across the older films.

Several familiar faces are coming back. Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Rebecca Romijn, James Marsden, Alan Cumming and Kelsey Grammer have all signed on to reprise their X-Men roles. For many viewers, that is the moment the older films and the newer ones finally meet on the same screen.

The studio is also building a new team. Christopher Abbott, Adam Driver, Inde Navarrette, Maya Boyd, Kit Connor, Sadie Sink, Samara Weaving and Asa Germann are taking over X-Men roles for what Marvel calls the new generation of mutants. Each actor is joining a team with a long history, and each has a different path to the part.

The next X-Men film, directed by Jake Schreier, is scheduled to premiere on May 5, 2028. That date gives the new team its own film about a year and a half after Avengers: Doomsday opens.

For fans, the news answers a long-running question about when the mutants would return to Marvel's main story. It also sets up a clear run of dates for the next two years of Marvel releases. The studio has not yet said how the new X-Men film will connect to the events of Doomsday.