Marvel Studios confirmed Robert Downey Jr.’s return as Doctor Doom during the San Diego Comic-Con last month. The actor shared how the idea of him playing the villain in the upcoming ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ and ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’ came up in a recent chat.
“Susan and I were sitting down with [Kevin] Feige at one point and he said, ‘It just keeps occurring to me that if you were to come back,’” he told The Hollywood Reporter after mentioning that he kept in touch with the Marvel CEO. “Susan was like, ‘Wait, wait, come back as what?’ Then we both realized over time that it was another thing that just disproves any doubt anyone could ever have about that guy, a very sophisticated creative thinker, about how can we not go backwards, how can we not disappoint expectations, how we can continue to beat expectations?”
“And he brought up Victor Von Doom. I looked up this character and I was like, ‘Wow.’ Later, Kevin goes, ‘Let’s get Victor Von Doom right. Let’s get that right,’” the actor added, confirming that his version of Doom was not an evil Tony Stark variant.
The actor recalled, “So, then I said to Kevin, ‘Can I go talk to Bob Iger?’ He goes, ‘About?’ I go, ‘About everything.’ I’d gone to Bob’s house and I don’t know how to describe that experience. I’ve had a lot of really cool experiences, but I go to Iger’s pad, we sit down and he goes, ‘I like it.’ I was like, ‘He likes it.’”
“He said, ‘Come by the Imagineering Campus.’ Feige and I go to the Imagineering Campus and you want to talk about two guys that are not easy to have their minds blown, let alone at the same time…I can’t say too much, but what is going on there right now is so beyond my expectation of what was possible.”
Marvel Studios brought Doctor Doom to replace Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror in the upcoming ‘Avengers’ films. The company parted ways with Majors in 2023 following his conviction on two misdemeanor counts of harassment and assault.
Not even Downey’s Marvel co-stars knew that the Iron Man actor would step into the Doctor Doom role until the July convention. “I had no idea,” Jeremy Renner told US Weekly a few weeks ago.
“The son of a b*tch didn’t say anything to me. We’re good friends. There’s the Avengers family chat. The original six. He said not a peep. I got online and started blowing up his phone like, ‘What’s going on? You’ve been hiding this from us the whole time?’ It’s exciting news. I’m really, really excited about it.”
The Russo brothers also returned to the MCU as directors for the 2026 and 2027 films, reportedly upon RDJ’s request.
