Marvel Studios finally responded to the wave of Avengers: Doomsday leaks that spread across social media over the past several weeks. The fifth Avengers film ranks among the year’s biggest releases. Yet official footage stayed scarce since the first three short trailers Marvel released months ago. So when a blurry clip from the movie surfaced online, fans were quick to share it and debate over its details. The clip was more than a minute long and teased an X-Men and Avengers clash with Doctor Doom, though the rough, unfinished visuals left plenty of room to question whether any of it was genuine.
Over the past weekend, dozens of posts that once displayed the footage went dark. In their place, social platforms displayed a notice that read "This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner." This message points to Marvel Studios filing copyright claims to scrub the clip.
It isn’t much of a surprise for Marvel to do this, given that high-quality stills started to make the rounds after the first blurry clip. The sharper images offered a better look at Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom and showed the Avengers, X-Men, and Fantastic Four grouped in a circle, with Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers at the front.
While Marvel Studios has taken action here, this does not confirm that the leaked Avengers: Doomsday stills are real. Since AI fakes have become more and more common place, studios have sometimes issued DMCA takedowns to even fake movie stills.
Its also possible that the stills will not actually be part of the final cut of the movie, and instead were only supposed to be used for marketing. Avenger: Infinity War notoriously had many scenes in its trailer that were meant to fake out fans as to what was actually going on in the final movie.
However, the footage stayed live long enough for fans to grab copies and screenshots before it vanished, so they could still resurface on the internet. This isn’t the first Marvel project of 2026 to encounter such a mishap. The second trailer for Brand New Day faced an even bigger challenge, leading Sony to respond the same way Marvel Studios just did.
When Will Fans Get a Proper Look at Doctor Doom and Other Characters?
The leaks are a sign of hunger for more Avengers: Doomsday content, which Marvel has been starving fans of. The studio showed a full Doomsday trailer only once, behind closed doors at CinemaCon in April, and that footage still hasn’t been made public yet. Everyone outside that room got only written descriptions of the footage, which is why the bootleg clips found such a hungry audience.
However, fans do not need to fret; a proper look at Doomsday might be around the corner. San Diego Comic-Con takes place from July 22 through July 26, and Marvel Studios returns to Hall H on Saturday, July 25, after skipping the convention last year. Doomsday tops the bill, which makes that panel the likeliest place for a sanctioned trailer and a full HD first look at Doom and the rest of the cast.
A studio-approved trailer would do what the bootlegs cannot. Fans would finally see Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom, Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four in finished form, free of the pixelated mess that fueled weeks of arguments.
Marvel also plans a bigger marketing push at D23 in Anaheim later in the summer, so the Comic-Con reveal would likely be the first of several official looks before December. After months of crumbs, this reveal cannot come soon enough.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
