The post packed four alarms into a few lines: a panicking studio, a bloodbath, a superhero death toll and a mass execution. On October 12th, an X account called Havoc Crave posted that Disney was “panicking” over test screenings for “Avengers: Doomsday.” It said early viewers called the film a “completely humorless, harrowing bloodbath” with a massive superhero death toll, and that one insider said “It feels like a mass execution of the franchise.” The account’s bio reads “Unofficial | Parody | Satirical News Account,” yet that label did not travel with the text. About 14 minutes later, an account called DoomsDay Update’s (@DoomsDayLeaks9) reposted the words with an official poster and without the parody context. Together the two posts drew roughly 2.7 million views, according to 9to5Marvel.
Nothing in the post pointed to a real screening, a date, a city or a named attendee. Cosmic Book News, which reported the story on October 13th, found that the account behind it had joined X only in September and listed its location as “Satire.” In that outlet’s count, the account had 677 followers. Community Notes were later added to both posts. The note on the original says the account’s bio “identifies it as an unofficial parody and satirical news account,” and that no credible reports support the claim of Disney panicking. Warning beyond this point there are rumors about character deaths in “Avengers: Doomsday,” and none of them is confirmed.
Nothing in the post pointed to a real screening, a date, a city or a named attendee.”
The correction moved more slowly than the post did. Cosmic Book News, in a story by editor-in-chief Matt McGloin, reported that the original had passed 1.3 million views and that the copy picked up another 1.4 million on its own. It added that the Community Notes had not slowed the claim much, since the replies were full of fans taking the “bloodbath” line at face value, and some were even cheering it on. 9to5Marvel followed on October 14th, crediting that timeline and adding that Forbes writer Erik Kain quote-posted the claim with a comment of his own about the MCU’s recent years. Geeks + Gamers also ran the story on October 13th, but its version embedded the DoomsDay Update’s post and never mentioned the parody account. It treated the claim as an open question instead, writing that nobody had established where the supposed reactions came from or who attended the screenings.
The positive chatter is older, and it is no more official than the panic post. In April, the scooper MyTimeToShineHello said Marvel had screened a pre-reshoots cut for Kevin Feige and select staff, who were “very pleased with it.” On September 7th, the same account said a new test screening “scored higher than Endgame” and that the film was still around two hours and 45 minutes long. On September 25th, the scooper Daniel Richtman said three test screenings had taken place, with reactions described as “good,” and that the opening 10 minutes would “give people heart attacks.” None of the three came with a published score or a named attendee.
Even that praise deserves some distance. The September 7th post, as Cosmic Book News prints it, also predicted that fans would “hear all about it soon from trades and such.” As of October 21st, no report on a Doomsday test screening from Deadline, Variety or The Hollywood Reporter has surfaced, so the claim still rests on one scooper’s word. The outlets that repeated it do not agree on its size, either. Cosmic Book News printed the account’s wording as “higher than Endgame,” while ComicBookMovie.com put “much higher” inside quotation marks. 9to5Marvel rates the Endgame comparison 3 out of 10 because there is no number, no scoring method and no second source. It also notes that audiences at a secret early screening of an Avengers film are about as primed to love it as any crowd could be.
The scooper reports do not agree with each other on everything, and tone is where they split. On September 28th, MyTimeToShineHello wrote that “Doomsday will have TONS of jokes” and that “I’ve talked to people who have seen it.” That is two weeks older than the parody post, and Geeks + Gamers read it as a direct contradiction of the “humorless” claim. A different rumor, from an account called James Mack on October 11th, describes “an extremely serious movie, designed to create a sense of unease and anxiety as the world approaches its end.” It leaves only a few characters to supply comic relief, as GeekTyrant reports. None of that is verified, and each camp claims to have heard from someone who saw the film, so the honest reading is that the tone is unsettled rather than known.
The death-toll half of the post had a real rumor to lean on, which may be why it felt believable. On September 11th, MyTimeToShineHello posted that “Doom is killing too many,” a line Cosmic Book News tied to Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.) and his collision with the Avengers, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men. Sebastian Stan told Decider, in an interview Deadline reported on October 7th, that “I haven’t seen the movie.” He added that it will be “probably heartbreaking” and that “We’ll see who makes it to the next level.” Joe Russo, speaking to Fandango, called the film “intense” and said “The tone is very different,” according to ComicBookMovie.com. A somber film with deaths in it is plausible, and that is a long way from a studio in a panic.
What is on the record is thinner and calmer. The Hollywood Reporter reported on July 13th that the film’s runtime is 165 minutes, or two hours and 45 minutes. That would place it between “Avengers: Infinity War” at 149 minutes and “Avengers: Endgame” at 181 minutes, and the outlet cautioned that a final cut is unlikely to be locked that far ahead. In the interview Fandango posted on September 29th, Anthony Russo described the film as about two and a half hours, “or so,” as Cosmic Book News, IGN and ComicBookMovie.com all print, although they punctuate the rest of the sentence differently. Actor David Harbour told Collider on June 2nd that he had seen about six minutes of the film during ADR and called it “as good as anything I’ve seen.” That is a cast member’s impression of a few scenes, not a test audience’s verdict.
Marvel has not weighed in. Both Cosmic Book News and 9to5Marvel say it does not comment on test screenings at all, which is why, in 9to5Marvel’s words, nobody can prove a negative here. 9to5Marvel draws a line between “unconfirmed” and “invented by a satire account,” places this post in the second group, and scores it 0 out of 10 on its own rumor tracker. It adds that no scooper, trade outlet or studio source has backed the claim, and it reminds readers that test cuts change, so even a figure like two hours and 45 minutes is a snapshot. The stakes are plain enough, since the film, which opens on December 18th, has presales that Cosmic Book News says have already passed $100 million worldwide. A claim that Disney is panicking is exactly the kind of thing that spreads in the weeks before an event like that.
Telling a parody account from a scooper takes about a minute. Start with the bio, which here says “Parody” and “Satirical” in plain words, then look at the location field, which said “Satire,” and the join date, which was September, just the month before the post. Follower count is a weaker clue, though 677 is small for an account whose post reached millions. Then ask what the post actually contains. The named scoopers cited above attach a name to what they say and can be checked against their own history, while the “panicking” post offered three quotable phrases and no screening, city or scene. 9to5Marvel’s rule of thumb is to check the bio before sharing any Doomsday leak that has no name, city or scene attached. The repost shows why, since stripping the parody label and adding a poster was enough to make a joke read like news.
What Do You Think? Did you see the “bloodbath” post before you saw the correction, and did the poster make it look more real? Should a repost have to carry the parody label of the account it came from? And would you rather hear about “Avengers: Doomsday” from a named scooper with a history, or wait for the first reactions after the premiere?
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