“Avengers: Secret Wars” may not start filming until January, according to a wave of online scoopers. If they are right the biggest Marvel movie on the calendar is now racing a very tight clock. Nobody official has said a word. Marvel Studios has not confirmed a delay, and the film is still dated for December 17th, 2027. So treat everything in the first half of this piece as rumor, because that is all it is right now.
The claim comes from three well-known Marvel leakers: Daniel Richtman, Alex P. and Apocalyptic Horseman. Polygon and Dark Horizons and Murphy’s Multiverse have all written it up. But every one of them traces back to the same small group of social media accounts and no trade outlet has reported it. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers and plenty of speculation about “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars.”
Marvel Studios has not confirmed a delay, and the film is still dated for December 17th, 2027.”
Here is the rumor in full: “Secret Wars” was first expected to shoot in the middle of 2026. Reports then moved that to August and later to the fall. Richtman first claimed principal photography had slipped to November and then said it had slipped again to January 2027. Alex P. and Apocalyptic Horseman backed the January date. That shifting story is the first reason to be careful, because a scooper who revises his own date within a few weeks is reporting a moving target, not a locked schedule.
If January is right the math gets uncomfortable. A shoot of roughly six months would wrap around June or July, leaving well under six months to finish a movie built almost entirely on visual effects. For comparison, “Avengers: Doomsday” filmed at Pinewood Studios from April to September 2025 and opens December 18th, 2026. That gave it about fifteen months between the first day of shooting and release. “Secret Wars” would get about eleven, and it is the bigger film by any measure.
Marvel has done tight turnarounds before. Polygon points out that “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” started filming in August 2025, finished in December and still opened this summer. “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” worked on a similar timeline. But neither of those had to juggle dozens of stars across several universes. If the rumor holds the likeliest reading is that Marvel keeps the date and squeezes post-production hard. A move into 2028 is possible but nobody has reported one.
There is a more interesting theory behind the delay, and Polygon raises it too. Marvel may be waiting to see how “Doomsday” plays before it commits to the shoot. That would be a sensible move, since “Doomsday” opens in December and audience reaction to its ending could change what “Secret Wars” needs to be. It is also only a theory, and the simpler explanation is that a movie this large is hard to schedule around actors with other jobs, and that has been true of every Avengers film.
What is confirmed is the shape of the story. Anthony and Joe Russo are directing both films, with Michael Waldron and Stephen McFeely among the writers. These two films were not always the plan. The saga was built around Kang until Marvel fired Jonathan Majors in December 2023, and the first film was retitled from “The Kang Dynasty” to “Doomsday” in 2024. The films draw loose inspiration from the 1984 “Secret Wars” event and the 2015 version, where the multiverse collapses and the survivors end up on a patchwork world called Battleworld. In the 2015 comic, Doctor Doom rules that world as a god. Robert Downey Jr. plays Doom in “Doomsday.” It is not a stretch to guess where that leads.
That brings us to the fun part: our own theories. None of what follows is reported, and it is all speculation built on what the films have set up and what the comics did. Start with Battleworld itself, because in the 2015 comic Battleworld is stitched together from the remains of dead universes, each region ruled by a baron loyal to Doom. That structure is perfect for a movie that wants to bring back every Marvel film since 2000. A Fox X-Men region, a Sony Spider-Man region and a Netflix street-level region could all exist side by side.
The Fox X-Men are the easiest call. Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, James Marsden, Alan Cumming, Rebecca Romijn and Kelsey Grammer are all confirmed for “Doomsday,” along with Channing Tatum finally playing Gambit after his solo film was shelved years ago. They are clearly being set up for something larger than a cameo. Our guess is that “Secret Wars” gives that cast a proper ending and then hands the X-Men over to a new generation. Sadie Sink is reportedly playing Jean Grey in “Secret Wars.” If that report holds, it points straight at a passing of the torch.
Spider-Man is the next obvious bet. Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield already returned once in “No Way Home.” A multiverse finale without them would feel like a missed chance. But the better idea is a Venom showdown. Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock spent a trilogy in his own corner of the Sony universe, and Topher Grace played Eddie Brock in “Spider-Man 3” back in 2007. Two Eddie Brocks from two universes, one symbiote between them, is exactly the fight Battleworld exists to stage.
Then there is the Hulk. The comics have Old Man Hulk, a gray and ruined Bruce Banner from the “Old Man Logan” future, and an even darker version called the Maestro. Mark Ruffalo is the MCU’s Hulk. But Lou Ferrigno, the original television Hulk, has a history with this franchise too: he voiced the Hulk in the 2008 film and in the first “Avengers.” A grizzled, aged Hulk on some Battleworld frontier, with Ferrigno in the role, would be a tribute that makes a theater cheer.
Our wilder theories go deeper into the bench. Wesley Snipes’ Blade and Jennifer Garner’s Elektra already came back in “Deadpool & Wolverine,” so the door is open for more of the pre-MCU era. The Netflix Defenders are set to reunite in “Daredevil: Born Again,” and a street-level region of Battleworld could put Charlie Cox’s Daredevil beside them in a real fight. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool are a near certainty to us. A Tony Stark variant facing Downey’s Doom would be the boldest swing of all.
The biggest question is what survives. Kevin Feige has framed it plainly: “‘Endgame,’ literally was about endings, ‘Secret Wars’ is about beginnings.” He has also described the plan as a reset rather than a reboot. Our read is that it works as exactly that kind of reset. The surviving heroes rebuild one universe, the X-Men finally live in the same world as the Avengers, and the slate after 2027 starts fresh. That is a theory too. It is also the only ending that makes a two-film multiverse collapse worth the trouble.
So back to the facts one more time. The filming delay is unconfirmed. It comes from scoopers, not from Marvel, Disney or a trade report, and one of those scoopers has already changed his own date. The release date has not moved. Take the delay with a large grain of salt until someone official says otherwise, and take our theories as exactly what they are: fans thinking out loud about the biggest crossover Marvel has ever tried.
What Do You Think? Will “Secret Wars” keep its December 2027 date if filming really slips to January? Which variant matchup do you most want to see on Battleworld? And should the film end the Fox X-Men era for good, or keep them around?
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