This Marvel Mega-Star is Ready to Share Why He’s Returning to MCU
By Movieguide® Contributor
Weeks after Robert Downey Jr.’s big MCU return reveal as Doctor Doom, the star is sharing how his Marvel reprise happened.
“Susan [Downey] and I were sitting down with Feige at one point, and he said, ‘It just keeps occurring to me that if you were to come back,’ and Susan was like, ‘Wait, come back as what?’” Downey said about Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige convincing him to return.
The IRON MAN star said, “he and his wife, who is also his producing partner, witnessed in that moment Feige, 51, being ‘a very sophisticated creative thinker,’ as he pitched the couple about Downey Jr. playing Doctor Doom,” The NY Post reported Aug. 21.
Feige wanted to be sure that they met expectations and didn’t “go backward” with Downey as Dr. Doom.
“He brought up Victor Von Doom,” the award-winning actor continued. “And I looked into it as character, and I was like, ‘Wow.’ But later on he goes, ‘Let’s get Victor Von Doom right.’”
A meeting with Disney CEO Bob Iger, Downey and Feige set things in stone.
“I don’t know how to describe that experience,” Downey said. “I’ve had a lot of really cool experiences. We go to Iger’s pad, and we sit down, I start saying, ‘I just really want to be…,’ he goes, ‘I like it.’ He likes it.”
Iger then invited Downey and Feige to Disney’s Imagineering Campus.
“And you wanna talk about two guys that are not easy to have their minds blown, let alone at the same time,” Downey said.
“I can’t say too much about [it], but what is going on there right now is so beyond my expectation of what was possible, that no wonder it was numinous to me. And it’s also the only way that I felt like I can give a certain entertainment seeking audience something that they may have a hankering to have an experience of in a way where I can continue to develop my interest in the future of entertainment.”
Downey said the conversations about his new role happened around one year back. Marvel Studios originally cast Jonathan Majors as Kang, the MCU’s next villain, but the studio lost interest in him after his arrest for assault in March 2023.
Screen Rant said, “The fact that Downey Jr. and Marvel Studios began conversations over a year ago shows that the executives were well aware that it was not going to work out to have Kang as The Multiverse Saga’s villain.”
Downey made his reveal as Doctor Doom last month at Comic-Con.
Movieguide® reported:
“Robert Downey Jr. is set to return to the film franchise as classic Fantastic Four villain Doctor Doom for the newly titled AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY, due out in May 2026, and AVENGERS: SECRET WARS, bowing in May 2027. Kevin Feige also officially confirmed the Russo bros. will direct these next two AVENGERS films,” per The Hollywood Reporter.
“New mask, same task,” he said after removing a mask at the event. “What can I say, I like playing complicated characters.”
