I think we were all a bit perplexed when it was announced by Marvel Studios and The Russo Brothers that Robert Downey Jr. would be returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as supervillain Doctor Doom in “Avengers: Doomsday,” this coming after his impactful sacrifice to destroy Thanos and his army in “Avengers: Endgame” as Tony Stark gives up his life to use the Infinity Gauntlet.
While speaking recently with CBR during a Q&A connected to a 10th Anniversay screening of “Captain America: Civil War,” RDJ (with the Russos also in attendance) shared his insight and pressure connected to playing the next big villain after the one-two-punch of Josh Brolin‘s Thanos, “I think ‘Doomsday,’ more than any [film] so far… just because I’ve now realized our tendency to be telling the story of the world while hiding behind the fact that, ‘No, we’re just telling superhero movies that you can enjoy!’ But you’re only as good as your bad guy, tying Doomsday to Infinity War specifically. And again, the one thing everybody could rally around [in ‘Infinity War’] is, ‘You’re going to have to contend with [Josh] Brolin.’
READ MORE: June Movie Preview: ‘Toy Story 5,’ ‘Supergirl,’ Spielberg’s‘ Disclosure Day,’ & More
We have to assume the pivot to Doom from Kang the Conqueror was necessary after the firing of Jonathan Majors, so perhaps the high-profile return (after RDJ won his Best Supporting Actor Oscar statue for playing an adversary in “Oppenheimer“) was designed to keep the heat off the studio for the switch-up. That also led to Chris Evans coming back after retiring the Captain America role, and the studio enlisting a heap of “X-Men” franchise actors from the Singerverse era (they include Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Alan Cumming, James Marsden, Kelsey Grammer, and Rebecca Romijn) alongside Channing Tatum’s Gambit from “Deadpool & Wolverine” to help beef up the event film’s draw.
The post-credit scene from “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” set four years after the events with Galactus, featured a brief glimpse of RDJ’s Victor von Doom, as he is seen interacting with Franklin Richards after Latveria was also teased in the movie, but Doom was obviously absent from the main movie to keep the focus on the main group, the Shalla-Bal iteration of Silver Surfer, and the planet-eating cosmic entity, who wanted Franklin to take his place (an obvious nod to the Earth-X comics). This would suggest that Doom will be coming from Earth-828 (unless they say otherwise) and would make the second established universe with “Fantastic Four” characters, we saw John Krasinki playing Dr. Reed Richards (part of The Illumnati) in Earth-838 from “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness,” but he was brutally killed by Wanda (unknown if characters new or otherwise will be part of the next two “Avengers” films).
We’ll see how close the Doom plot is going to mirror the comic book source material (notably, the MCU movies tend to be their own thing and not a direct one-to-one with the comics), and whether he will attempt to capture Galactus’ power for himself or something just as nefarious, leading into “Avengers: Secret Wars” as the plan seems to be a franchise-wide reset.
“Avengers: Doomsday” will be going toe-to-toe against “Dune Part Three” (minus IMAX screens that were gobbled up by the Denis Villeneuve sci-fi fantasy flick) on December 16, and we cannot wait to get a look at a proper trailer and plot synopsis.
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
