Credit: Marvel StudiosRobert Downey Jr. almost had a wildly different role that would’ve left fans wowed but not disappointed.
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One funny thing about Marvel is that actors tend to get several roles playing different super heroes. If you’re Chris Evans, you end up as the Human Torch for a few years and still land the role of Captain America. Why? Because the MCU changed the super hero industry, and everything beforehand was just a collection of closed stories. With the MCU, fans got a lot of fun, campy super hero stories, but none of them were connected, and that’s where Kevin Feige came in.
He brought Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. together to create Iron Man (2008), a movie that wowed fans and launched a new era of storytelling. RDJ was the soul of the MCU as he starred in many movies as Tony Stark/Iron Man before dying in Avengers: Endgame (2019). It was the turning point for the actor, but Marvel almost gave the actor another iconic role.
Kevin Feige and Jon Favreau met for a special video talking about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which led to Favreau confirming that RDJ was originally in talks to star as Doctor Doom:
“I remember that Robert had come in for a general on it and I remember you had all met with him already for like Dr. Doom or something on another project… I think he had come through on… like Fantastic Four… So everybody sort of knew who he was and I remember sitting down with the guy and I was like geez he just got… that spark in him and his eye, and he’s ready. And that’s when we were in your (Kevin Feige) office and we were pointing to his headshot and saying we got to try to figure this out.”
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While it’s unconfirmed that RDJ would’ve starred as Doom in 2005’s Fantastic Four, that’s the only logical explanation for when to expect Doom back then. Marvel chose Julian McMahon to star as the titular villain; the rest was history. Before that video, no one knew whether Marvel had talked to RDJ about Doctor Doom.
Doctor Doom is gearing up for a significant return to Marvel movies soon as Fantastic Four debuts in 2025, with the villain likely to appear in that MCU movie or another film. Marvel Studios won’t make Secret Wars without the villain, so fans can expect to see another actor take on the mantle. If Robert Downey Jr. took on the role of Doctor Doom, it might have been hard to have him star as Iron Man, so it seems that Marvel made the right call as it would’ve been too confusing to make the first MCU movie include an actor who previously played a villain.
Do you like the idea of Robert Downey Jr. starring as Doctor Doom? Let Inside the Magic know what you think!