Marvel Studios has stopped selling Avengers: Doomsday like the next chapter of a franchise and started staging it like a live event. Its latest move borrowed one of American sport’s oldest rituals, the ceremonial first pitch, and put the ball in the hand of Pedro Pascal‘s Mister Fantastic, the scientist introduced on his own Earth in The Fantastic Four: First Steps and now has to share a universe, and a mound, with the Avengers.

As Deadline first reported, Major League Baseball and the MCU teamed up for an exclusive preview that aired during the opening game of the World Series, with the Tampa Bay Rays facing the Milwaukee Brewers on Fox and Fox One. In the spot, Pascal’s Reed Richards takes the mound and throws the first pitch to Joseph Quinn’s Human Torch. Chris Evans‘ Steve Rogers also turns up to scramble the chain of command: Paul Rudd‘s Ant-Man is left unsure whom he should be calling Captain America, now that Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson carries the shield.

The league was in on the joke. MLB primed fans with a “Something’s coming …” clip showing the Avengers logo in a green-tinted sky above Milwaukee’s American Family Field, then posted the preview under the line “Worlds collide”, saying it “assembles Bryce Harper, Freddie Freeman, Jacob Misiorowski, Junior Caminero and Randy Arozarena.” The stunt pulls baseball stars into the film’s own pitch: heroes from different worlds forced onto the same field.

It is the latest beat in a campaign built on spectacle rather than plot reveals. Deadline reported in September that the film’s July trailer ranked as the second-biggest movie trailer launch of all time and Disney’s most-viewed ever, that the five-hour-plus livestream revealing the cast through names on the backs of set chairs drew 275 million digital views, and that domestic ticket pre-sales had already crossed $50 million, with more than 70% of sales going to premium formats.

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, the duo behind Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, Doomsday collapses the multiverse and forces heroes from several Earths to unite against Doctor Doom, played by Robert Downey Jr. The ensemble also includes Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Letitia Wright’s Black Panther, Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi and an X-Men contingent led by Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen and James Marsden.

The film opens in theaters on December 18, 2026, a date it shares with Denis Villeneuve’s third Dune film, which Deadline notes will have IMAX screens for its opening weekend.

Mister Fantastic’s pitch was ceremonial. The real game starts in December, when Marvel’s multiverse opens against Arrakis and the IMAX screens belong to the other team.