Robert Downey Jr. Is Returning To The MCU. But How?
Of all the things that fans were expecting from Marvel’s presentation at the San Diego Comic Con, Robert Downey Jr.’s return was not one of them. Downey played Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, for eleven years – in 2008’s Iron Man, 2010’s Iron Man 2, 2012’s The Avengers, 2013’s Iron Man 3, 2015’s Avengers: Age Of Ultron, 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. Hopefully, it’s not a spoiler at this point to say that Stark died a heroic death in Endgame, defeating Thanos and saving the day.
After Endgame, Downey seemed to indicate that he had no plans to return to the character, saying he’d done all that he could do with Stark. He told Joe Rogan, “If I pick the jersey back up and put it on, wouldn’t you feel a little bit like, ‘Aw, crap?’ To me, starting up again is off the table. I feel like I’ve done all I could with that character.”
He added, “But the other thing is, I wanna do other stuff.” And, of course, he has done other stuff since then, which included co-starring in 2023’s Oppenheimer. He won an Oscar for his role as Lewis Strauss in that film.
Besides the fact that Tony Stark died, there were rumors that Disney wanted to phase RDJ out of the MCU, because — believe it or not — – he was too expensive. Business Insider broke down how much Downey made per film: starting with a relatively modest $2.5 million for Iron Man; that’s because he was considered a risky choice at the time, due to his issues with substance abuse.
But his salary and backend earnings went up pretty quickly: Business Insider reported that he made $75 million for Avengers: Endgame, which is extraordinary, given how many other stars were in the cast. Perhaps those rumors weren’t true, or perhaps Marvel and Downey inked a new deal, but we know he’s returning to the MCU, in a new and frankly shocking role.
At Comic Con, Downey dramatically revealed that he’s playing one of Marvel’s most notorious villains, Dr. Doom, who has not been seen in the MCU yet. And we also know that the Russo Brothers – Anthony and Joe Russo – who directed Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame, are returning to direct the next two Avengers films, both of which will feature RDJ’s Doom.
Those films were originally set to center around Jonathan Majors’ Kang, who appeared in both seasons of Disney+’s Loki series as well as the poorly received 2023 film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. But Marvel fired Majors following his guilty verdict for assault in his domestic violence trial.
The next Avengers film was to be subtitled “Kang Dynasty.” It’s now been renamed “Doomsday.” That film is due out in May of 2026. Avengers: Secret Wars will also be directed by the Russo Brothers and will also feature RDJ’s Doom; that is due out in May of 2027. They haven’t explained how this will work: it seems that Dr. Doom will have some link to the Tony Stark that we’ve known and loved. Given that Marvel still seems to be playing with the multiverse, it seems plausible that this Doctor Doom will be a variant of Tony Stark from an alternate timeline. If you haven’t seen Deadpool/Wolverine, we won’t spoil anything here, but we’ll say that we saw variant versions of some major characters. (You can also watch the two seasons of Loki, which goes into detail about variants; both seasons were excellent.)
So it could be that Doom looks just like Stark because he is a variant. In the real world, there has been waning enthusiasm about Marvel films over the past year or so; Deadpool/Wolverine appears to have turned that around and the announcement of RDJ’s return seems to have supercharged the MCU fanbase. There’s a long time to go, and lots of other MCU films, before we get to Avengers: Doomsday, but safe to say that they’ve brought a lot of excitement back to the mega-franchise.