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Robert Downey Jr. will forever be associated with the character of Tony Stark/Iron Man thanks to his performance in the MCU for over a decade, but Marvel Studios' Kevin Feige reveals the major MCU villain that Downey nearly played.
Marvel recently put out a 15-year anniversary video for Iron Man — the film that kicked off the MCU — which featured a 21-minute conversation between Feige and the film's director, Jon Favreau. During that conversation, the two discussed the casting of Downey, and Favreau casually dropped in that Downey had already auditioned for another Marvel project.
“I remember that Robert had come in for a general [audtion] on it [Iron Man], and I remember you had all met with him already for Doctor Doom or something on another project — I think he had come through on maybe Fantastic Four, so everybody kind of knew who he was,” said Favreau.
Judging by Feige's face, it appears that this story took him back in time as he slowly began remembering what went down. A simple, “right, right,” from Feige was enough to confirm that Downey did, in fact, audition for the role of Doctor Doom in some capacity.
Julian McMahon ended up landing the role for the 2005 Fantastic Four film, but this may have been a blessing in disguise as Downey would go on to star as Iron Man and lead the MCU through Avengers: Endgame.
People tend to forget that Robert Downey Jr. was an outstanding actor pre-Iron Man. Before landing the role of Tony Stark, Downey was an Academy Award-nominated actor thanks to his role in Chaplin (portraying the titular Charlie Chaplin). While his role in the MCU role as Iron Man dominated much of his body of work from 2008-2019, Downey still balanced other roles such as ones in The Judge alongside Robert Duvall, Chef — another film directed by Favreau — and Oppenheimer.
Should Downey have gotten the role, it's fair to question if the MCU ever would have gotten off the ground. It's fun to look back, but things likely worked out for the best.
