Marvel Studios is making sure Avengers: Secret Wars has something in its corner that Doomsday missed out on. The two movies are set to close out the Multiverse Saga as back-to-back Avengers team-ups, a familiar one-two punch Marvel pulled off with Infinity War and Endgame, also directed by the Russo Brothers. This time, though, it seems that Doomsday and Secret Wars will be more distinct stories rather than a straightforward Part 1 and Part 2. That distinction will be even more greatly defined by this release upgrade Secret Wars has, that Doomsday does not.
IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond recently joined Matt Belloni's The Town podcast, where he re-confirmed that Avengers: Secret Wars is getting an IMAX release.
"And by the way, at the end of next year, we're doing Avengers," Gelfond said, later adding, "You've got Frozen 3 next year. I mentioned we're playing Avengers next year..."
The re-confirmation is notable because Avengers: Doomsday infamously won't have any IMAX screens when it opens on December 18. That's because Warner Bros.' Dune: Part Three locked down an exclusive IMAX deal for this holiday corridor, setting up an epic "Dunesday" box office showdown.
So, in this one way, Secret Wars already has a leg up on Doomsday, which is still expected to be one of the biggest movies of 2026, despite no IMAX screens.
In response, Disney created Infinity Vision, which isn't a new theatrical format at all. It's essentially a sticker Disney can slap on other premium screens to nudge fans toward a pricier viewing option instead of a standard one.
Belloni pushed Gelfond on whether Infinity Vision felt like a shot at IMAX: "You've got to see that as a little bit of a threat to you."
Gelfond didn't see it that way. "I don't, Matt," adding that Disney is well run, and they need to forge their own path, without, IMAX, to massive box office success:
"I think it's not that they didn't like it, which they obviously didn't. I think it's that they couldn't have it. And you know the Disney organization pretty well. They like to have a lot of things. It's why they've done such a great job."
He went on to explain that Doomsday was originally scheduled for release over the summer (May 1, 2026), and by the time Disney delayed it to December (in May 2025), Warner Bros. had already claimed the IMAX slot.
Looking at it from Disney's side, Gelfond said, the studio landed on Infinity Vision as the next best thing: "It probably would be great if we could have IMAX, but we can't. So, what's the closest thing we could do?"
It is important to note that the deal Warner Bros. has with IMAX is for three weeks, so in theory, Doomsday could add IMAX screens during its fourth week of release. Sony Pictures' Spider-Man: Brand New Day recently broke records during its opening weekend without IMAX, then added it during weekend two after Universal Pictures' The Odyssey lost its exclusivity.
Can Secret Wars Outgross Endgame?
If Doomsday is this Saga's Infinity War, then Secret Wars is shaping up to be the Endgame of the two, at least when it comes to box office potential.
When it comes to the return of the Avengers franchise, seven years later, there's little doubt that Doomsday won't outgross Endgame for a variety of reasons.
What's been shocking, though, is how close Spider-Man: Brand New Day has come to Endgame's numbers. Brand New Day has climbed to $2.23 billion worldwide and already beaten Endgame's domestic opening weekend record with $360 million. Even so, it's still expected to fall short of Endgame's mountain-top peak of $2.79 billion global total from 2019.
Whether or not it's realistic, Secret Wars is the next best bet to conquer that mountain. Like Endgame, it's capping off a full saga, and with Marvel Studios moving away from multiversal storytelling starting in 2028, the floodgates for potential superhero cameos from the last 25+ years will open.
It also has a wrinkle Endgame never did: the Russos have described Secret Wars as just as much "a new beginning" as it is an ending.
Doomsday's results should make Secret Wars much easier to project, but for now, Endgame's crown is safe. As things stand, it's fair to predict Doomsday and Secret Wars won't even outgross Brand New Day, let alone Endgame or James Cameron's Avatar, the two top grossers of all time.
