The Winter Soldier actor says he hasn’t seen the finished movie, which directors shot with an evolving script ahead of its Dec. 18 release.
Sebastian Stan expects the upcoming Marvel film “Avengers: Doomsday” will be “heartbreaking,” the actor told Decider while promoting his movie “Fjord.”
Stan, who plays Bucky Barnes, also known as the Winter Soldier, said he hasn’t watched the final cut of the movie. “I haven’t seen the movie, and I don’t know how it turned out,” Stan said. “I’m sure it’s going to be probably heartbreaking, in a lot of ways. We’ll see who makes it to the next level.”
Stan isn’t the only actor in the production unsure of the wider narrative. Alan Cumming, who returns as the mutant superhero Nightcrawler after debuting in 2003’s “X2: X-Men United,” told SiriusXM that he didn’t grasp the storyline. “To be honest, I don’t fully understand the plot,” Cumming said, adding that most of his scenes were shot “in front of a blue screen.”
Shooting without a finished script
The cast’s uncertainty follows a production process that began without a locked screenplay. Co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo, who previously directed the 2019 release “Avengers: Endgame,” worked from an unfinished script during production.
“We always view the script as a living organism,” Joe Russo told the Associated Press last month. “We’re improvisation-based, rehearsal-based directors. We like to see what the actors bring to the characters, and sometimes you don’t get the actors until a few days or few weeks before you shoot them. And a lot of the time, that’s when the magic happens.”
Stan first played Barnes in 2011’s “Captain America: The First Avenger” before appearing in sequels including “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Captain America: Civil War,” and “Avengers: Infinity War.” He described his time on the new set as a reunion. “It was very nostalgic to look back and think about all of these years that we’ve known each other and grew up together. It’s incredible in that way,” Stan said. “It’s been a family, and it never stops being that way.”
Release date and crossover roster
“Avengers: Doomsday” is scheduled to open in theaters on Dec. 18 as part of Phase 6 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The storyline brings together groups from different universes, including the Avengers, Wakandans from “Black Panther,” Earth-616’s Thunderbolts (known as the New Avengers), Earth-828’s Fantastic Four, and the original X-Men.
The film is already the top presales title at the Alamo Drafthouse theater chain, ranking ahead of the Elizabeth Holmes documentary “You Can See Everything.”
