Robert Downey Jr. Casting as Doctor Doom Proves Marvel Is Running on Fumes

Why the hell did they cast Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom?

This whole article could be that single question repeated with different inflections. Why the hell did they cast Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom? Why the hell did they cast Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom? Why the hell did they cast Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom? And so on. But after Kevin Feige took the stage at Comic-Con and announced that the erstwhile linchpin of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe would come back to play one of the most hotly-anticipated villains in franchise history, it’s a question well worth asking.

It’s no mystery as to why Robert Downey Jr. agreed to it, even after a successful Oscar campaign where he told anyone who would listen how good it felt to make Real Movies again: Any of us would do the same if someone dumped a pile of money the size of Mount Kilimanjaro on our front lawn. And being Doctor Doom should be at least marginally less time-consuming than being Iron Man.

The real question is why the powers that be in the MCU thought this was a good idea to begin with. Why would a franchise that insists it can last for decades longer make a move that so clearly suggests it’s running on fumes? Why would it choose to overshadow every single new addition to its cast for the next few years with such a brazen exercise in stunt casting? Why would a franchise at least nominally interested in keeping things fresh go back to a well we thought had run dry five years ago?

The answer is simple. The MCU, in a very real way, has given up.

There will doubtlessly be spin to the contrary, explaining that this is actually a Bold New Direction for the superhero juggernaut. This Doctor Doom will likely be a Doom from another universe, a universe where he has Tony Stark’s face and (presumably) isn’t Romani. Maybe they’ll lean into the Strauss-versus-Oppenheimer dynamic between Doom and Reed Richards. And although the bloom has come off the franchise rose somewhat in the years since Avengers: Endgame, the runaway success of Deadpool & Wolverine suggests that the MCU still has a receptive audience. There will still be an MCU for a while longer, with or without this foolish casting choice.

So when I say that the MCU has “given up,” that doesn’t mean Kevin Feige will shuffle out of his office carrying his nerd paraphernalia in a big cardboard box, the brim of his baseball cap drooping forlornly over his eyes. The truth is something less dramatic, yet somehow more tragic: The MCU is admitting defeat, acknowledging that nothing they do from here on out will live up to the franchise’s salad days, and committing itself fully to shallow fanservice.

One of the primary assets of the MCU when it first started was its acuity with casting, taking chances on actors who weren’t necessarily sure bets and making them cornerstones of the franchise. Robert Downey Jr.’s career had only recently gotten back on the rails after a lengthy battle with substance abuse when he was cast as Iron Man.

Before they were Captain America and Thor, Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth were best known as, respectively, the guy who played the Human Torch in the mediocre Fantastic Four movies and the guy who played Kirk’s dad in the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie. And insofar as there were fans clamoring for any particular actor to play Loki before Thor, they almost certainly didn’t have the low-profile BBC staple Tom Hiddleston in mind. These were not easy decisions to make, but they were made anyway, for the simple reason that they were the right actors for the job.

It’s hard to determine the first major inflection point where this changed. Was it when Chris Pratt was tapped to play Star Lord, starting the proud MCU tradition of casting sitcom actors and loading them up with steroids? Or was it when Brie Larson took the role of Captain Marvel after winning an Oscar, reinforcing the idea that starring in a Marvel movie was the apex of the modern Hollywood career?

Either way, the casting ethos that built the franchise had permanently shifted, and just about every rising star ended up being pulled into the MCU’s orbit, whether they were well-served by the material or not. Whereas Chris Evans seemed like he was born to play Captain America, virtually the entire cast of Eternals could have traded parts with each other without anyone noticing. (Did Salma Hayek or Angelina Jolie play Thena? Was Richard Madden Ikaris or Druig? You see my point.)

The second major inflection point—the one that led directly to Downey’s Doom—is much easier to determine. In March 2023, Jonathan Majors, one of the best new discoveries of Phase IV and the franchise’s post-Thanos big bad as Kang, was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend, abruptly halting his meteoric rise and sending Marvel scrambling. The next two Avengers movies, Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars, had already been planned around Kang. They had to find a plan B, and they found it in Downey’s Doom. (Accordingly, Kang Dynasty has been renamed Doomsday.)

It’s the safest of safe choices, and while it’s certainly preferable to going ahead with Majors, it indicates just how gun-shy the MCU has become. There are hundreds of actors who could play Victor Von Doom, including many the general public may not know about; the old MCU might have taken a chance on one of them.

But the problem runs deeper than just casting practices. After Endgame paid off over a decade of buildup in one orgasmic explosion of fanservice, the MCU found itself in something of a rut. The films, usually guaranteed at least 80 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, were met with mixed reviews, with critics tiring of the inorganic greenscreens and formulaic quipping; more troublingly, audience numbers weren’t nearly as high as they used to be, with movies like Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels becoming outright flops.

With the exception of WandaVision (and to a lesser extent, Loki), the much-hyped TV shows didn’t leave much of an impact, either. (Remember when Secret Invasion was supposed to be Marvel’s Andor?) There were some bright spots (Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3), as well as the occasional stab at something more lively than the usual formula (the rare moments in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness where they let Sam Raimi slip the leash), but there was more than a faint whiff of stagnation in the air.

The MCU, then, had two choices. They could radically alter their standard operating procedure, giving their directors more creative control and pushing the franchise into places it had never gone before, or they could wallow in nostalgia and the kind of audience-pandering wrestling fans call “cheap pop”. The MCU, for the most part, has chosen the latter, and the success of Spider-Man: No Way Home (soon to be matched, if not surpassed, by the similarly shameless Deadpool & Wolverine) indicates that they made a good business decision. But artistically, it’s disastrous: It essentially admits that they have nothing more to offer than warm memories.

And so we arrive at the announcement of Downey’s return, and in hindsight, it was inevitable. Part of the excitement at the start of the MCU was the sense that it was building to something, with every post-credits scene and Easter egg serving as an enticing hint of something thrilling on the horizon. At first, it seemed like it was building to Endgame, but now it’s clear it was building up to this: the Marvel ouroboros finally eating its nostalgic tail.