Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom Performance Teased By Avengers: Doomsday Star

One of Robert Downey Jr.’s Avengers: Doomsday co-stars has shared an intriguing tease about his Doctor Doom performance.

After kicking off the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008 with Iron Man, Downey’s tenure as Tony Stark concluded when the character died in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. Seven years later, the actor is months away from making his grand return to the superhero franchise as Doom, Doomsday’s main antagonist. While the public has yet to receive a full taste of Downey portraying the famed Marvel villain, Ebon Moss-Bachrach shared what it was like for him witnessing the performance for the upcoming Marvel movie firsthand.

While speaking with Entertainment Tonight, Moss-Bachrach described his experience in the MCU as “a carnival of really great actors” who are “dressed sort of silly,” making it feel like “you’re at a costume party.” When asked who surprised him the most on the Avengers: Doomsday set, the actor, who’s reprising Benjamin Grimm, a.k.a. The Thing, following his debut in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, answered:

I guess in scenes, Downey is such a surprising, playful, mischievous actor. I found him to be maybe the most sort of surprising or the most unknowable, in a good way, in an acting sort of way.

Doctor Doom has previously been portrayed in live action by Julian McMahon in the Fantastic Four movies from the 2000s, and by Toby Kebbell in the 2015 reboot. Although Downey did cameo as Doom in The Fantastic Four: First Steps post-credits scene, he didn’t speak and his face wasn’t shown. So until a full Avengers: Doomsday trailer is released following the teasers from the end of 2025, fans continue to rely on comments from Moss-Bachrach and Downey’s other co-stars for indicators about what to expect from his take on Victor von Doom.

Originally, the fifth Avengers movie was called Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. In this version, with various versions of Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror being set to antagonize Earth’s Mightiest Heroes following variants of the character first being seen in Loki and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Following Majors’ legal troubles, it was decided to retool The Kang Dynasty into Avengers: Doomsday, though Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has said that the decision to replace Kang with Doom was in the works before the third Ant-Man movie came out.

Though traditionally depicted as the Fantastic Four’s arch-enemy, Doctor Doom wasn’t present in The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ main story. It was decided that the quartet would clash with Galactus and the Silver Surfer. Instead, Downey’s Doom was only shown in the movie’s final moments, appearing before Franklin Richards four years later, holding his metal mask in his hand as the boy reached up to touch his face. Vanessa Kirby confirmed Downey played Doom in the scene, which was filmed as part of Avengers: Doomsday’s production.

Details remain scarce about what Doctor Doom is plotting in Avengers: Doomsday beyond posing some kind of threat to the multiverse. The movie opens in theaters on December 18, the same day as Dune: Part Three. Doom’s machinations, and the entire Multiverse Saga, will then be wrapped up in Avengers: Secret Wars on December 17, 2027.