Robert Downey Jr. was revealed at this year’s Comic-Con to be playing Victor Von Doom in the upcoming Avengers, but the star nearly played him before.
The tail-end of July has seen something of a defibrillator shocking some life back into Marvel. Not only has the anticipated film Deadpool & Wolverine become a massive opening and sending fans home with giddiness over some immensely deep cuts from the comic book film world, but Marvel Studios’ panel from Comic-Con has dropped some big upcoming news as well. The biggest reveal (which also seems to be kind of a controversial one) was Robert Downey Jr.’s return to the MCU, this time as the iconic villain Doctor Doom in the next Avengers entry, Doomsday.
World of Reel is now reporting that it was revealed in an uncovered interview between Kevin Feige and Jon Favreau that Downey Jr. had met with Feige to possibly play Doctor Doom in 2005’s Fantastic Four from 20th Century Fox. Feige was a producer on that film and as he and Favreau reflect on their first MCU film Iron Man, Favreau says,
I remember that Robert had come in for a general [meeting] on [Iron Man] and you had already met with him for Doctor Doom or something.”
Favreau continued, “I think he had come through on Fantastic Four. So everybody knew who he was. I remember sitting down with the guy and I was like, ‘He’s got that spark in his eye and he’s ready.’ That’s when we were in your office and we were putting to his headshot and saying we’ve gotta try and figure this out [for Iron Man].”
The part of Victor Von Doom would eventually go to Julian McMahon, who was on the hit FX show Nip/Tuck at the time. McMahon would play Doctor Doom opposite the Fantastic Four cast that included Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Jessica Alba as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm/The Thing and a pre-Captain America Chris Evans as Johnny Storm/Human Torch. 2005’s Fantastic Four would not become the adaptation that fans were hoping for, but the film would become a hit and warrant a sequel that brought in The Silver Surfer along with Galactus.
Galactus will be making an appearance in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. However, Doctor Doom is also known as a villain that is closely tied with Marvel’s first family, so it’s possible we see a tie-in with Victor Von Doom prior to Doomsday, most likely in a post-credits scene.