No one is afraid of the MCU anymore

Sup, Popculturology fans. Welcome to the Friday newsletter. There’s a ton of news to cover this week.

Are you buying the $219.99 Beskar Collector’s Edition steelbook for The Mandalorian and Grogu? (You gotta charge that much when a movie was a box office flop.) Have you lost whatever faith you had left in District 9 director Neill Blomkamp now that he’s peddling an AI-generated movie? Or were you curious what the heck was going on with Conan O’Brien’s hair this week?

I swear I didn’t push this, but our daughter asked to watch both Moana and Moana 2 this week. I was surprised at how much I liked the animated sequel as I watched it for the first time since it didn’t impress me when it premiered. Maybe the fact that we actually got an original Moana story in animated form instead of the reheated and reviled live-action remake made me appreciate Moana 2 now.

Or maybe I just wanted an excuse to drop Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “demo” of “I Am Moana” in this edition of Popculturology ...

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‼️ THE BIG STORIES

Spidey isn’t scared of Doomsday

There are many flashing red lights when it comes to the release of Avengers: Doomsday. The film is up against a very real release-date fight with Dune: Part Three. Disney created the imaginary Infinity Vision theater standard to make up for not having access to IMAX screens. And to top off all of that, Sony dropped its final trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day the day after the first trailer for Doomsday went live.

If you ever needed a better sign of where the strength in the MCU currently sits, that last one is it.

I assume that Disney and Sony compare notes when it comes to promoting the Spider-Man films, but Sony dropping that Brand New Day trailer on Tuesday was not something I saw coming. An Avengers trailer used to be an event. You could drop whatever bad news you wanted in the wake of a new Avengers trailer, and the Internet would miss it.

Seems like no one is afraid of the MCU anymore.

• Final Spidey trailer swings online: The Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer is the kind of trailer you earn after putting in almost a decade of work. It looks like Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton brought some special energy to his Spider-Man movie. (Watch)
• “We shall be faced with an unthinkable decision”: The first trailer for Avengers: Doomsday is weightless. There are no stakes. The characters collide for reasons unknown. (Watch)
• First impressions: With the release of the Doomsday trailer, I took a look back at the first trailer for each of the previous Avengers movies (along with Captain America: Civil War). Doomsday doesn’t have the juice. (Popculturology)
• 🎟️ Did you get your tickets? Avengers: Doomsday doesn’t hit theaters on Dec. 18, but thanks to Monday’s ticket release, the film has already grossed $16.5 million in advance sales. (Variety)
• Not in the Driver’s seat: As rumors swirl that Adam Driver had signed on to play Magneto in the next X-Men film, Feige told the Happy Sad Confused podcast that, “It’s no secret we’d like to [work with Driver]. But it’s a tradition to Zoom with him and then he passes. That’s a long-lived tradition. He couldn’t be more cordial. He is usually upfront about how he is feeling.” Mmhmm ... (The Hollywood Reporter)
• Not Marvel’s sharpest moment: Feige also touched on Marvel Studios’s failure to make a Blade movie a reality. “I am feeling like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn’t get off the ground with [Mahershala Ali],” the studio boss said during his Happy Sad Confused chat. (Variety)
• Deadpool will rise again: While Ryan Reynolds’s Deadpool allegedly isn’t part of Avengers: Doomsday, the actor believes that there are still more stories to tell with the character. “There’s stuff upcoming,” Reynolds said during an appearance at Fanatics Fest 2026. “There’s eventually, you know, remotely another Deadpool film. It’s going to be great.” (The Hollywood Reporter)