Who will lead the Avengers in Doomsday? This is who might decide

The Fantastic Four: First Steps director Matt Shakman recently clarified his Avengers comments. For the uninitiated, last week on July 16, 2025, Shakman gave an interview to Variety in which he revealed that Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic was the most difficult role to cast because of the character's multiple sides of a nerdy scientist, a family man, and a leader. The director's exact words were:

“He goes from being the nerdy scientist who’s locked away in the lab, to the husband and the father who’d do anything to protect his family, to the guy who’s leading the Avengers. I realized that the version we were building had to have all of those elements.”

This quote had fans believe that Pedro Pascal's Reed Richards would go on to become the leader of the Earth's Mightiest Heroes in the MCU. However, this week, Shakman clarified those comments in a ScreenRant interview with Ash Crossan. He further revealed that the Russo Brothers might have the answer about who leads the MCU super team in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars.

Matt Shakman's latest Avengers comments explained

As mentioned before, The Fantastic Four: First Steps director, Matt Shakman, was interviewed by Ash Crossan, a reporter from ScreenRant, this week. In this interview, the two discussed the filmmaker's quote about Mr. Fantastic leading the Avengers. Explaining that he was talking about Reed Richards in the comics, Shakman said:

"So I actually didn’t say that… The internet ran with it. So the question asked me about casting Pedro and about, and I was talking about Reed Richards in the comic books and how Reed Richards is sometimes the cerebral scientist. Sometimes he's off leading the Avengers, sometimes he's a father, a husband, whatever. So I was talking about him in the comic books and about how there are so many different aspects to that character. Somebody who is believably the smartest man in the universe, somebody who will jump into the action and be believable as a leader. And also somebody who has that emotional connection to their family."

Talking about why he chose Pedro Pascal to play Reed Richards, Shakman said:

"And that's why I was drawn to Pedro, such an incredible actor. So what he does in Avengers Doomsday is not for me to talk about, talk to Joe or Anthony. I was just talking about reading the comic books and how I was figuring out who could play him the best."

Speaking of the Russo Brothers, Shakman also revealed that both Joe and Anthony Russo visited the set of The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

Shakman explains that the Russos visited the sets of The Fantastic Four: First Steps to learn about the characters

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On July 22, 2025, Matt Shakman made an interesting revelation to Deadline. At the blue carpet premiere of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, director Matt Shakman revealed that the Russo Brothers had visited the film set. Considering everyone from First Steps is confirmed to appear in Doomsday, it makes sense that the director duo learn more about the characters.

He said this about the director duo's set visit:

“They were very curious about what we were doing, they came to tour our sets, they would watch scenes that we were cutting together, they wanted to get to know these people as they were working on their story and their script, so that I could pass the baton to them and these characters would be well cared for.”