AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY Used Fake Character Names to Hide Major Returns, Says Alan Cumming - "It Was So Confusing"

The hype around Avengers: Doomsday is already getting wild, and now Alan Cumming has shared a behind-the-scenes detail that makes the whole production sound even more chaotic.

The actor, who fans know as Nightcrawler from X-Men 2, shared that Marvel went to some pretty extreme lengths to keep surprise appearances under wraps… and it made reading the script a bit of a headache.

Cumming opened up about his experience working on the next massive Marvel crossover, and when talking about the number of characters, he said: "This film is like superhero soup. There's so many of them in it, I just can't keep up."

Doomsday is sure to end up being one of the biggest ensemble films Marvel has ever attempted. But it’s not just the size of the cast that made things tricky. It’s how Marvel handled secrecy. Cumming talked about the script saying:

"They're really hard to read, the scripts for superhero films… everyone's got two names. Sometimes there were secret names in it because they didn't want to let out that a certain character was coming back. They called them somebody else in the script. It was so confusing."

Fans are expecting a lot of surprise returns that weren’t initally announced for the film and they are being carefully hidden, which kicks speculation into overdrive. If characters are literally being renamed in scripts, there’s a good chance we haven’t even scratched the surface of who’s actually showing up.

Cumming also mentioned that his role in Doomsday isn’t huge, even though he previously said that Nightcrawler shares a scene with Pedro Pascal’s Mr. Fantastic. He previously said:

“All of [the X-Men cast] are in it, too. What was funny was that in my first scene with Pedro, he hurt his neck and had to go home. I broke Pedro.”

As for who else could pop up, there have been some many rumors and reports. Any character from the MCU that wasn’t initially announced could end up appearing!

As you know, Avengers: Doomsday is being positioned as a massive crossover event, with Robert Downey Jr. stepping into the role of Doctor Doom. Early footage shown at CinemaCon reportedly featured Thor going head-to-head with Doom, which was awesome and it’s exactly the kind of high-stakes clash fans are hoping for.

Marvel is clearly keeping its cards close to the chest on this one, and if scripts filled with fake names are any indication, there are going to be plenty of surprises waiting when the movie finally hits.

Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters on December 18.