David Harbour’s time as Hellboy proved to be a one-and-done affair, but he managed to find comic book movie success shortly thereafter. The Stranger Things star debuted as Alexei Shostakov, a.k.a. Red Guardian, in 2021’s Black Widow, and then after voicing an alternate version of the character last year in What If… ? Season 3, he reprised Red Guardian onscreen on the 2025 movies schedule for Thunderbolts*. Now Harbour is in the midst of playing his MCU character once more for December 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday, and the actor opened up by how shocked he was to see the massive scale of this upcoming Marvel movie.
With a little over a year to go until Doomsday hits theaters, Harbour shed light on his experience working with directors Joe and Anthony Russo on what will be the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s 39th movie. He started off by saying to ScreenRant:
I was not even convinced when we started, and this movie's gonna be really good. They have a special sauce. I don't even really understand, but they [the Russos] just know how to do these things. And I think that as evidenced in Civil War, as evidenced in Infinity War, there's something about the layers in which they put the comedy and the drama and the surprises and the scale and the epicness and all that stuff. It's incredible.
Joe and Anthony Russo entered the MCU to direct 2014’s Captain America: Civil War, and from there they tackled Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, three of this franchise’s most consequential installments. So having already seen their quality work in the franchise, David Harbour wasn’t concerned that Avengers: Doomsday wouldn’t follow suit, and so far he hasn’t been proven wrong. Doomsday began filming in late April, and the production is expected to last six months.
Even knowing he was in good hands with the Russos, David Harbour was still impressed by the sets constructed for Avengers: Doomsday, as well as the caliber of talent acting alongside him and the accommodations provided to them. As he put it:
I will say I've never been on a set like this in my life. I've never seen anything like this. You saw those chairs. So it's like, every one of those guys and girls has a trailer. It's just insane to look around the room and be like, ‘Oh my god, I'm in the movie. There's what'shisface doing that speech’. It's just enormous.
Red Guardian will jump back into action alongside his New Avengers teammates Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), John Walker/U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and Bob Reynolds/Sentry (Lewis Pullman). They’ll join forces with the Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men and other characters against the multiversal threat that is Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom. In fact, Thunderbolts*’ post-credits scene teased this coming team-up by showing the New Avengers witnessing the arrival of a spaceship with the Fantastic Four logo on it.
While we wait for more updates on Avengers: Doomsday, remember that Thunderbolts* can now be streamed with a Disney+ subscription. David Harbour will also be back on our small screens in the next few months when Stranger Things’ final season is released in three parts to Netflix subscription holders.
