Casting Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom is a desperate move that can backfire on Marvel

How can fans accept Iron Man as Doom?

In an odd way, the casting could make sense. The comics have played on the idea Doom and Stark are flip sides of the same coin, armored geniuses with very healthy egos who want to change the world. The difference of course being Tony is a mostly good guy while Doom is almost pure evil. 

There have even been comic book stories of Doom trying to become an Iron Man character. That works in the comics yet movies are a different story. Marvel has resued actors before such as Gemma Chan playing Minn-Erva in Captain Marvel, then Sersi in The Eternals. But this is something else. 

Had Downey Jr never been in the MCU at all, his casting as Doom might seem iffy. But that history is the biggest stumbling block in this. There’s no getting around that audiences are going to see him as Tony first, Doom second. Sure, wearing that mask will help, but everyone knows who’s under it, and likely flashbacks showing Doom before he was scarred to wear the armor, and folks will just think of Tony without the goatee. 

This is comparable to how, in the 1990s, the James Bond producers might have considered casting Sean Connery as a Bond villain. Sure, it seems compelling, but the fans will only think of the old 007 vs. the new. And when Connery did try his hand at such a role in 1998’s The Avengers (based on the old British TV show)...well, let’s just say it wasn’t that good.

Then, there’s the concern of how Doom enters the story. The upcoming Fantastic Four: First Steps is set in an alternate 1960s, so perhaps it introduces Downey as Doom, who somehow enters the main MCU with the FF. In which case perhaps his similarity to Tony can be hand-waved as some freak cosmic coincidence but likely someone makes a line about it. Fourth-wall-breaking works for Deadpool, not the main MCU.

A terrible move would be that this is an alternate reality version of Tony, who went evil and took on the Doom name, which is the completely wrong way to do the character. That’s without how Tony had such an amazing exit in Endgame that also seemed the perfect sendoff for Downey. The man couldn’t possibly top that, let alone by coming back as Doom. One would think with that Oscar win, Downey would move into smaller films, not back into the MCU. 

While a huge paycheck is the likely reason, maybe Downey sees the challenge in going from Tony to Doom, which fits his history of daring parts. That doesn’t mean the producers had to engage in it when a lot of actors could have done the role as well if not better. But that leads to another reason this comes off bad.