- Robert Downey Jr is officially back in the MCU as Victor Von Doom / Doctor Doom (not Tony Stark / Iron Man).
- The Academy Award-winning actor of Oppenheimer fame will headline The Russo Brothers’ Avengers: Doomsday (formerly Avengers: The Kang Dynasty) & Avengers: Secret Wars.
- But long before his Marvel-backed career resurgence, he was already in the conversation to become this iconic villain.
Netizens were sent into hysterics this past weekend with the announcement that Robert Downey Jr was coming out of Marvel Cinematic Universe retirement to portray Victor Von Doom / Doctor Doom — not billionaire playboy industrialist Tony Stark / Iron Man.
The Academy Award-winning actor is poised to serve as the main villain for the newly-retitled Avengers: Doomsday (formerly Avengers: The Kang Dynasty) as well as Avengers: Secret Wars, which will also hail the return of The Russo Brothers.
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“New mask, same task,” Robert Downey Jr said rather dramatically at San Diego Comic-Con’s Hall H.
Despite how beloved Downey Jr has become over the years, this development has proven to be rather polarising, with many fans labelling it desperate stunt casting. But to paraphrase Josh Brolin’s Thanos, this was almost inevitable…
Once upon a time, before RDJ gave us the greatest MCU film to date — irrevocably changing the landscape of modern cinema in the process — he was actually a top contender to play Marvel’s other billionaire industrialist for Fantastic Four (2005).
“I remember you had all met with [Robert Downey Jr] already for like Doctor Doom or something on another project,” Iron Man director Jon Favreau said in a conversation with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige.
“I think he had come through on maybe Fantastic Four, so everybody sort of knew who he was.”
Eventually, this iteration of the big baddie would be brought to life by Aussie thespian Julian McMahon, who starred opposite Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards / Mr Fantastic, Jessica Alba as Susan Storm / Invisible Woman, Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm / The Things, and future Captain America Chris Evans as Johnny Storm / Human Torch.
Of course, life often has a funny habit of taking things exactly where they need to go. And a little down the road, it would all come together for Favreau’s seminal Iron Man.
Favreau continued: “He was the puzzle piece that made it all work. I remember sitting down with the guy, and I was like, ‘He’s got that spark in him in his eye and he’s ready.’ That’s when we were in your office, and we were pointing to his headshot, saying, ‘We got to try to figure this out.’”
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“Once it was him, that’s when my life got a lot easier because he understood. He understood the voice of the character. And then one by one, people were just signing on board because now it became something interesting.”
“The tone that you and Robert discovered on that movie, I would say became the template in a way for much of what the MCU became,” added Kevin Feige.
And now, we’ve officially come full circle. “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” as DC’s Harvey Dent would say.
Check out the full conversation between the architects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe below.
