Kevin Feige Confirms Robert Downey Jr. Almost Played Doctor Doom in Fantastic Four

Actor Robert Downey Jr. has become synonymous with the Iron Man character after bringing the character to life in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but he may have gotten his first Marvel role a few years beforehand. In commemoration of the 15th anniversary of Iron Man, producer Kevin Feige and director Jon Favreau reflected on the casting of RDJ as Tony Stark in a new video from Marvel Entertainment. It was during this conversation that it was subtly confirmed that Downey had been up for the role of the supervillain Doctor Doom in the Fantastic Four movie released in 2005. While he didn’t get the role, being up for it indirectly led to his casting in Iron Man.

“I remember that Robert had come in for a general [role] on it, and I remember you head already met him for Doctor Doom or something on another project, I think he had come through maybe on Fantastic Four?” Favreau asks.

“Right,” Feige responded, confirming as much.

The role of Doctor Doom went to Julian McMahon in Fantastic Four, but Downey had apparently made an impression on Feige. When it came time to casting Iron Man, Feige still had Downey’s headshots in his office, and that had led to Favreau discussing with him the possibility of putting the actor into the role of Tony Stark.

“So, everybody sort of knew who he was, and I remember sitting down with the guy, and I was like, ‘Jeez, he’s just got it, he’s got that spark in him, in his eye, and he’s ready,'” Favreau recalls. “And that’s when we were in your office, and we were pointing to his headshot and saying, ‘We’ve got to try to figure this out.'”

Related: The Best Robert Downey Jr. Movies Where He’s Not Playing Iron Man

Robert Downey Jr. Suits Up as Iron Man

Downey was brought in for a screen test, and after killing that, he was able to secure his casting as Tony Stark in Iron Man. From there, putting together the movie became so much easier for Favreau, as the director also recalls. Now that Downey was in place as the movie’s star, there was more understanding on what to do with the character creatively. An added benefit was that the actor’s involvement made it easier to get other wanted names on board as well.

“Once it was him, that’s when my life got a lot easier, because he understood the voice of the character, and then one by one, people were just signing on board,” Favreau says. “Because, now it became something interesting to people. Gwyneth [Paltrow], Jeff [Bridges]. It galvanized at that point, and then people were just popping in because it was cool.”

Downey would stick around in the role of Iron Man for many years to come, further proving how perfect his casting was for that character. He wrapped up his run in the role with the 2019 film Avengers: Endgame and has no apparent plans to revisit Tony Stark for any future Marvel projects after the events of Endgame.