Robert Downey Jr stunned fans as the Iron Man star removed a mask during the San Diego Comic-Con Hall H panel to reveal that he will play Doctor Doom, one of Marvel’s biggest villains, in the upcoming film Avengers: Doomsday.
The panel on Saturday was flooded with hooded figures wearing masks of the comic book villain known for his sorcery and science when Downey Jr revealed his face. “I like playing complicated characters,” he said as fans began to chant his name.
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He has some experience being a dude playing the dude disguised as another dude.
Apparently this is not a joke.
I mean, it sounds like a joke right? Like a desperate or cynical stunt to use his appeal to get the franchise going again … or is that just me?
I can see some multiverse thing about Doom being a dark version of Iron Man … that’s make sense and basically confirm the beliefs that RDJ’s iron wasn’t going to be gone for long. Even still, it’d appear cynical.
But in Hollywood, a major actor playing multiple roles in the same franchise, isn’t really a thing (for better or worse) … so this is certainly something right?
I mean, it sounds like a joke right? Like a desperate or cynical stunt to use his appeal to get the franchise going again … or is that just me?
There may be an in-universe explanation but that seems the only way I can see them justifying the budget to get him back. Apparently, Deadpool isn’t Marvel Jesus after all.
He might not ever take his mask off. Doom really shouldn’t have a lot of facetime anyway.
If he did that it would be awesome, like how hugo weaving played V at the height of his popularity as agent Smith…but i just don’t think RDJ is wired that way. Just my gut talking here
Edward Norton did it in Kingdom of Heaven too, I think it’s the angle they will take.
If marvel is planning some multiverse shit like other commenters are hunting at… like say the flashpoint timeline(?) where Superman was raised by the us govt i could get real excited for a RDJ doom.
With iron man, he’s constantly taking off the helmet, opening it out etc. I’m with you, while some actors are willing to do mask only performances, or not be credited in promotional materials, like Hugo Weaving or Matt Damon, I don’t think RDJ is someone like that.
There are 2 possible explanations in universe. There was. Story where Dr doom and iron man swapped bodies, and a story where Iron man turns evil, the first is more likely. Probably crosses over to that universe and that Dr doom escapes. Or something.
Or it’s nothing that deep and in universe Dr doom just looks a lot like Tony stark for some reason.
I mean I think it’s more that they want to keep it going, not that it didn’t do well
Maybe that’s the angle they’re taking it. Remember that Reed Richards was in a different universe in MoM, and Spider-Mans were different Peters, so…
I have no doubt he can do well with the character, just hope it makes a bit of sense and doesn’t feel like they’re using RDJ as a selling point to breathe life back into a tired run.
Josh Brolin played Cable in Deadpool and Thanos in Avengers.
I have listened to enough actors on podcasts that say they want interesting roles. (The lone exception is Joshua Malina, who says he does it for the paycheck and doesn’t care but I am pretty sure he’s joking.)
RDJ main issue with Iron Man is that it was repetitive. Marvel (probably more so Disney) squeezed so much blood from that stone that he was just tired of it. Nothing else left to explore.
I’m hoping RDJ can revitalize the franchise but I’m not holding my breath.
I think Malina just takes whatever roles Aaron Sorkin can pull strings for.
No it doesn’t sound like a joke. It sounds like a perfect response to the situation they’re in.
His last Avengers was their last predictable hit. Things haven’t been going so well since he left.
Majors is out. You could recast the big bad, or change to a different big bad. Since “He Who Remains” wasn’t going over that well anyway, it makes sense to shift to a new one. Maybe one of the best they have available, Dr. Doom.
So by combining the best villain with the best star, you have the best bet for banking billions.
Makes perfect sense.
There was that one guy in deadwood who killed it in both roles but it was jarring even still. I agree with you that downey jrs role sounds like a cynical move made to aid an ‘ailing’ (as in not printing as muchmoney) franchise and can’t help but feel that this move means they don’t know how to bring that magic back, at all
JFC, I had to check what community this was posted in. Omg, RDJ as Dr Doom!! This is really happening!!!
This is not a drill!
InfiniTony War
Infinity Rob
I don’t know how I feel about this. I’ve seen so many terrible iterations of Dr. Doom in prior movies, and I just want a well done Doom because he’s one of my favorite characters. I’m trying to picture Doom speaking like RDJ and it just really throws me off.
Apparantly there’s a multiverse with Tony becoming Dr Doom so… This could be interesting.
I’d love for the first Dr. Doom in the MCU to just be the Victor Von Doom we know from the comics. After that, sure, bring on the alternate reality versions.
Technically, with the multiverse, everything that has gone before is out there and part of the MCU. So we’ve had multiple Dooms, the first one in films being Joseph Culp.
I’m completely down with him rocking this role
They made Doctor Strange into a pop music fan for his films, they better use MF DOOM music for this iteration of Doom, one way or another.
Or drop a line. “Do you see the perpetrator?” “yeah, I’m right here”
Could be interesting. Finally getting a good version of Doom would be pretty cool
“We have Doctor Doom at home”
I might be misremembering my marvel lore but didn’t Tony Stark have a twin? If so, I could see an evil twin story making some sense
didn’t Tony Stark have a twin?
If I recall correctly, he has a corrupt time traveling nephew. And…
He’s had to fight his own corrupt future self at least twice. He’s been replaced by AI at least
twicethree times (I remembered a third).And there’s alternate timelines where he becomes Sorcerer Supreme, and where he becomes Doom.
As Movie Bob says, ‘Comics are Weird’.
That would be a bit cheap, the best bet is this Doom is an alternate reality Iron Man.
Entertainment Weekly have been trying to piece the clues together:
Marvel directors Joe and Anthony Russo will be re-teaming with Downey for the first time since they killed off Tony Stark together in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, but they did not divulge many details about their upcoming movies other than their titles. The fifth Avengers movie, initially called Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, has now been revamped to Avengers: Doomsday with a focus on Doom instead of Kang, while the sixth one will still be Avengers: Secret Wars. But the Russos did mention that introducing Doom into the MCU is essential preparation for the latter film, which gives a slight indication of what we’re in for here.
“It’s the biggest story that Marvel Comics ever told,” Joe Russo said on stage about Secret Wars. “It’s the reason Anthony and I are standing up here. It’s world-colliding epic-ness. But we need to make another movie first. There is one very important character that is required to do it justice.”
Secret Wars was a massive Marvel event comic, written by Jonathan Hickman with art by Esad Ribic, and first published in 2015. It tells an epic story of the multiverse getting destroyed by a process of parallel universes colliding into each other, thanks to the machinations of a group of powerful supernatural beings called the Ivory Kings. In that comic, Doom is able to save a small group of characters from across time and space and assemble them on a ragtag planet called Battleworld.
In other words, you can’t do Secret Wars without Doom, and if the post-credits scene of The Marvels is any indication, we won’t see an MCU X-Men movie without Secret Wars bringing parallel universes together.
Since Secret Wars is a multiverse story, that raises the distinct possibility that Downey’s Doom may by a multiversal variant of Tony Stark. That would be different than how variants have previously worked in the MCU, where they all share a common name or (in the case of the Deadpools from Deadpool & Wolverine) at least a costume. But then, Doom never plays by anyone else’s rules.
Introducing Doom in an Avengers movie is another surprise, since the character is usually the archenemy of the Fantastic Four — who, as it happens, are also making their long-awaited MCU debut soon. That movie is set to feature Ralph Ineson’s world eater Galactus as the primary adversary of the team, but since it’s set in a different universe than the main Avengers timeline, maybe Doom is that world’s equivalent of Stark. The fact that we’ll now have seen the character Reed Richards played by two different actors in MCU movies (John Krasinski in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and now Pedro Pascal in The Fantastic Four: First Steps) may make it easier to accept the same actor playing two different characters.
So Secret Wars will see a lot of multiverse variants brought together by Doom, so it opens the door for him to actually be an alternate Iron Man. It may also be the key to bringing the X-Men and FF into the MCU or making it more viable to cross them over somehow.
It may even be we’ll see RDJ in the FF film, perhaps just a cameo or end-credit scene, as he would need some set-up before Avengers: Doomsday.
2015? I could have sworn secret wars was a much older story arc.
There are two storylines: the 1984 one and the 2015 one. In the former all the superheroes are gathered together and made to fight, in the latter alternate realities collapse until there is just one world with various mash-up characters and unlikely alliances. It’s the 2015 one they are going with in the film.
Ah gotcha, thank you.
The old retelling trick.Variations on a theme. Other that the title and some broad themes, they are very different stories.
How though? Are we just supposed to forget that he’s Iron Man?
From IGN:
It’s also worth pointing out that there are versions of Doctor Doom in the Marvel multiverse who actually are Tony Stark. One of these is Iron Maniac, a version of Tony Stark introduced in 2004’s Marvel Team-Up #3. Another is featured in 2010’s What If? Iron Man: Demon in an Armor #1. In this world, Victor von Doom swapped bodies with Tony Stark in college. Trapped in his rival’s body Tony swears revenge and begins a yearslong quest to destroy Doom’s Stark Universal company.
I’d guess the What If? is the way they’d go.
Cool, thanks!
Iron Man died. And with the multiverse stuff being the thing right now, this Dr. Doom is likely an alternative Tony Stark.
That’s cool!
Now, I want to make reference to something about actors and jobs but it would ruin one of my favourite moments of Deadpool & Wolverine. 😆
Because there are other actors who have appeared as different characters in Marvel movies… In fact, D&W contains at least two that I can think of and one is generating a few articles in my newsfeed, although I suspect you are referring to the other, which is indeed one of the best bits of the film (and the end-credit scene).
My Dr Doom knowledge might be rusty but, was he somehow related to Elton John?
When universes intertwine.
