At San Diego Comic Con, Marvel announced that the Russo brothers were returning for two Avengers films with Doctor Doom as the main villain. This makes a lot of sense, but one part is very weird.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been uneven since the Russo brothers concluded their saga with Avengers: Endgame. Their track record on other films hasn’t been as great, so I get why Marvel wants them and why they’re happy to take eight-figure paychecks.
Doctor Doom is really important for the MCU right now. Audiences seem to like film brands that aren’t overexposed. This does not bode well for future Marvel sequels or the arrival of the mutants to the MCU. But Doctor Doom is the biggest Marvel character not to be in a good movie. A kickass villain can elevate some sequels and he is capable of doing that.
He is one of the biggest villains in pop culture, an influence on Darth Vader. Being introduced in the pages of the Fantastic Four with a scientific mind to rival Reed Richards, as well as sorcery skills impressive enough to challenge Doctor Doom. He also had classic encounters against Iron Man, briefly taking over as Iron Man during Brian Michael Bendis/ Alex Maleev’s run and he was the main villain of Marvel Comics’ Secret Wars crossovers.
From my perspective, the obvious casting of the intense European actor who plays a Romani gangster in a kickass TV show got even more obvious when he played an intense scientific genius in a movie that broke R-rated biopic box office records. Except Marvel went with the other Oscar winner from Oppenheimer: Robert Downey Jr, who also played Iron Man in nine different movies.
Robert Downey Jr’s fit as Doctor Doom
Downey Jr, as I understand him as an actor, doesn’t seem a great fit for Doctor Doom. His top film roles just seem like a guy who lives on the coast in the US: Tony Stark, cabinet nominee Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer, cocky lawyers in The Judge and Ally McBeal, American journalists in Zodiac, the Soloist and Good Night and Good Luck, as well as multiple Americans in the HBO mini-series The Sympathizer. In that one, he literally represented the United States of America.
A counterpoint is that he got an Oscar nomination as Chaplin, and another as an Australian method actor trying to depict a person who is not similar to him in real life. He has played Sherlock Holmes and Dolittle, even if I’m not sure he wants to mention that last one. This does all show that he is capable of depicting very different individuals than you would imagine from his typical star persona.
However, it’s obvious that Marvel hired him because of the Tony Stark connection, rather than his ability to be a chameleon. This is a way to excite fans, and the reveal at Comic Con was impressive.
Why do the Russo brothers say that he’s the one guy who can play the role? What’s on the screen will likely be different from what we imagine.
This is such an unusual situation that I wonder if Marvel’s been planning it for a while. Producer Kevin Feige said that Robert Downey Jr met with Marvel in the early 2000s to audition for the role of Dr Doom in Tim Story’s Fantastic Four movie. It’s possible this is made up and they mentioned it to sell the idea of Downey Jr as Doctor Doom since it likely was considered some time ago- it seems improbable that someone came up with the idea a month ago and everyone was on board by Comic-Con.
It could also be that this is an audition that was meaningful for Downey Jr. His brand as an actor would have fit the take on the character. They cast Nip/ Tuck’s Julian McMahon instead; this was back when Downey Jr. was unemployable.
Maybe they expected to bring Downey Jr back as Doctor Doom in a surprise. Avengers 5 was initially called Kang Dynasty, but after the box office failure of the villain’s debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and the conviction against actor Jonathan Majors, Disney is pivoting hard away from that.
But Doom for Secret Wars (which had been announced for years) could have always been the plan. Avengers 5 could have been Kang doing something interdimensional, and they could have promoted Robert Downey Jr’s return playing someone from another dimension- with the twist that it’s actually Doctor Doom. This would make me happier about some of the MCU planning since Kang was defeated too easily by Antman for a guy who was supposed to be the main antagonist in two Avengers films.
I get that this is a weird announcement for people who like Doctor Doom as a character and want to see him depicted accurately in film, especially since this character seems like he could fit into the MCU. I have noticed a shift in how MCU handles characters that have been done before. They seem comfortable making Shalla Bal the new Silver Surfer (in the comics she’s his love interest) or bringing back actors who played a role before. We didn’t think we’d see Hugh Jackman as Wolverine after Logan, but Deadpool & Wolverine is a massive hit. It’s possible that producers and directors who have made us happy in the past will do so again in the future.
But I have to wonder whose decision this was. According to Variety, Downey insisted on the Russo brothers coming back as directors, so it wasn’t their plan.
Maybe this is just like Peter Sellers playing multiple roles in Dr. Strangelove (or Downey doing the same thing in The Sympathizer.) Actors repeating roles could work in a comic book movie context, kinda like an artist leaving one Marvel comic to go to another. No one would think twice if a Spider-Man artist goes to the Hulk, or vice versa. Marvel might just want Downey for his star power, acting abilities, and reliability. He has shifted from an insurer’s nightmare to someone so beloved they are paying at least $80,000,000 with a lot of additional perks for him to save big sequels.
There are other ways for the guy who played Iron Man to depict one of his enemies. In the comics, Doctor Doom has the power to transfer his mind into other bodies. This first occurred in John Byrne’s run on the Fantastic Four. (H/t to Detek Metaltron of Comic Book Resources.)
One way to do something similar would be to introduce Robert Downey Jr as the Tony Stark of a different dimension. He might describe an encounter with an old friend of Reed Richards, an Eastern European dictator. That sets up the revelation that Doctor Doom has transferred his mind into Stark’s body. Marvel obviously spoiled it now, but it’s no more a spoiler than Mysterio turning out to be a bad guy in Spider-Man: Far From Home. Marvel also doesn’t want to keep quiet about a deal that is likely to cost nine figures; they want fans hyped now.
This allows Downey to be Doom in two films and allows for a more traditional (and significantly cheaper) depiction in future films. Secret Wars could end with Doctor Doom played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Alexander Skarsgård, or even the other guy who won an Oscar for acting in Oppenheimer.
Comic book writer Deniz Camp suggested on Twitter that if you want to understand how the guy who played Iron Man can play Doctor Doom, you’ll have to check out an upcoming issue of his and artist Phil Noto’s series The Ultimates.
This could all be shameless self-promotion. Though things can occur a bit differently in the Marvel Universe which is the setting for the Ultimate books. An evil version of Reed Richards had become that imprint’s Doctor Doom, and the current books are teasing a conflict between the evil Reed and Tony Stark, so maybe there is something to the connection.
It could also be something completely different.
Screen Culture made an impressive mock trailer, so this could look cool.
