Robert Downey Jr’s 20-year journey to the role that brings everything full-circle
The end of this year is going to be a fairly monumental one for cinema for one major reason: the release of the film that is likely to not only be the most expensive to make in all of Hollywood history, but also the highest-grossing film ever, too. What is that movie? Why it’s Avengers: Doomsday starring Robert Downey Jr and just about every other leading actor you can possibly think of.
Directors The Russo Brothers are throwing the kitchen sink (and about a billion dollars) at making the most jaw-dropping superhero movie ever conceived of: a franchise-mixing, character-swapping, special effects extravaganza that brings together not just the Avengers, but the Guardians of the Galaxy, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and all manner of other surprises, no doubt.
And it was Downey Jr that kicked all the fuss over the film off back in 2024 at San Diego Comic Con when he shocked Marvel fans by whipping off a silver mask and revealing that not only would he be returning to the world of the Avengers six years after dying in the last movie back in 2019, but that it would be as Doctor Doom, not as Iron Man.
That was a double shock, because it also meant that Downey Jr, having been a firm favourite good guy since his first Iron Man outing in 2008, was now about as bad a guy as it gets, playing a supervillain in Victor Werner von Doom who is not only a master of science but sorcery too, and is hellbent on ruling the earth (we’ll see about that Doom, just wait until the Avengers hear about it).
But much as it was a surprise, the new film in December will actually represent a closing of a two-decade circle for Downey Jr, who could have already played Doom as long ago as 2005 when he met with producers putting together the first iteration of the Fantastic Four. Former Swingers star Jon Favreau, who directed Downey Jr on the initial Iron Man movie, recalled the early discussions with Paul Feige, Marvel Studios president and executive producer on the Fantastic Four movies in 2005 and 2007.
Favreau told Feige in Variety: “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. I think he had come through on Fantastic Four. So everybody knew who he was.”
Adding: “I remember sitting down with the guy and I was like, ‘He’s got that spark in his eye, and he’s ready.’ (We were) saying ‘we’ve gotta try and figure this out for Iron Man.’”
While Downey Jr didn’t appear in the Fantastic Four movies, once he made his debut as Tony Stark in 2008’s Iron Man, he quickly became the catalyst behind the Avengers films, becoming one of the most successful in movie history. Iron Man was a huge critical and commercial smash, earning almost $600million on a budget of a quarter of that amount and spawning another two standalone movies in 2010 and 2013.
As if trying to rule the world in the biggest movie of all time isn’t enough, meanwhile, Downey Jr will also be slipping a deerstalker back on to make a long-awaited third Sherlock Holmes movie with Guy Ritchie, in addition to appearing in a celebrity-packed basketball film with Jamie Foxx called All-Star Weekend, which has been in development since 2016.
