Chris Evans heading back to Marvel for ‘Avengers: Doomsday’

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Captain America star Chris Evans is reportedly set to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Avengers: Doomsday.

According to reports published by The Wrap and confirmed by Deadline and Variety, Evans, who is best known to comic book movie fans for playing Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, in the MCU, is close to inking a deal to appear in the 2026 superhero epic.

The Russo Brothers, who directed Evans in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame,  are set to helm the upcoming two-part Avengers movies, Doomsday and Secret Wars.

In making his return, Evans will be joining Robert Downey Jr., who is set to play the villainous Doctor Doom in the sequels. But what isn’t known, is in what capacity Evans will come back. At the end of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, his character was an old man and Anthony Mackie, who will headline his own 2025 movie Captain America: Brave New World, had taken up the mantle of Captain America.

Evans recently appeared as Johnny Storm, aka The Human Torch, from Fox’s Fantastic Four films in this past summer’s Deadpool and Wolverine.

In 2021, rumours swirled that Evans had closed a deal to return to the MCU in an untitled Marvel film, with an option for a sequel.

But the actor shut down that speculation when he tweeted, “News to me,” adding a shrugging emoji.

Evans made his debut as the Golden Age comic book character in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, and went on to play the role in a number of Marvel films, including four Avengers entries.

After his character time travelled into the past and opted to live his life with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) following the events of 2019’s Endgame, Evans has repeatedly said he would be reluctant to rejoin the MCU. “I would never say never, but I’m very protective of it. It’s a very precious role to me, so it would have to be just right,” he said last year on The View.

But screenwriting duo Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who penned the two-part Avengers finale as well as The First Avenger, The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War and Thor: The Dark World, told Postmedia in a 2019 interview that there were still more stories Marvel could tell involving Evans’ Steve Rogers character.

“Chris (Markus) and I are partial to the idea that Steve is part of a strange, unique time-loop where he has always been there. The husband that you very purposefully did not see at Peggy’s bedside in Winter Soldier is Chris (Evans’) Steve. We have always thought that he was her husband. The movies you have been watching follow a line where he always goes back (in time). To be fair, not everyone agrees with us. I don’t even know if Marvel agrees with us. But that’s what we think,” McFeely said.

Meanwhile, when Postmedia caught up with Evans on the set of Avengers: Infinity War just before Christmas in 2017, the actor said he was going through a “cocktail of emotions” as he contemplated his time coming to an end in the MCU.

“It went by in the blink of an eye, but it was also a lifetime. It’s nice because it has evolved the way you hope. It’s not like we peaked with our friendship back on (Avengers: Age of) Ultron. The camaraderie we have is at an all time high… It feels like family, it really does,” he said.

“It’s nerve wracking,” Evans said of the possibility that he was finished. “But Marvel really knows what they are doing … It’s all one big arc. Everything’s moving towards the same endgame.”

Avengers: Doomsday is slated for release on May 1, 2026.

mdaniell@postmedia.com