San Diego Comic Con made major news this weekend with major Marvel announcements, while Deadpool & Wolverine shatters box office records with a $440 million worldwide bow. Marvel President and CCO Kevin Feige revealed Robert Downey Jr. will portray Doctor Doom in the MCU, and the Russo Bros. will return.
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – JULY 27: (L-R) Joe Russo, Robert Downey Jr. and Anthony Russo speak onstage … [+]
Another major announcement from Marvel at SDCC the two films will be directed by the Russo Brothers — Anthony and Joe — who previously directed some of the greatest and most successful MCU movies to date, including Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame.
The announcements come as Marvel Studios seeks to “course correct” after a bumpy 2023. Last year saw writer-director James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 score the only box office success for Marvel, grossing $845 million worldwide. But Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania underperformed with just $476 million, a huge problem for the MCU since it fully introduced Kang the Conquerer as the next major villain for the Avengers.
The failure of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania to get audiences invested, plus the assault and harassment accusations against Jonathan Majors, the actor hired to portray Kang, resulted in Marvel cutting ties with Majors and completely retooling their plans for the MCU’s future. As a result, Kang won’t be the big-bad anymore, Majors is fired, and Avengers: The Kang Dynasty has been dropped and replaced by Avengers: Doomsday.
The other failed Marvel movie of 2023 was The Marvels, and it had a disastrous outcome with a paltry $206 million global gross (despite being a terrific movie), while the Secret Invasion MCU series streaming on Disney+ met with mixed to negative reception. Press and fans were openly speculating that audiences had simply tired of Marvel, and that the MCU wouldn’t return to its former glory days.
Well, as usual with knee-jerk resorts to “superhero fatigue” claims and predictions of Marvel’s imminent failure, it turns out all that was needed were a few minor tweak. Or maybe a few minor tweaks and a couple of major ones named “Downey Jr.” and “Russo.” And of course, “Doom.”
In fact, there’s an additional name change revealed at SDCC that’s getting less ink simply because of how big the other news is. But among the announcements this weekend from Kevin Feige was that the Fantastic Four movie changed its name to Fantastic Four: First Steps. Set in an alternate 1960s timeline from the rest of the MCU (and from our own, obviously), the Fantastic Four will cross into the MCU via the multiverse, as will (presumably) Downey’s Doctor Doom.
Many questions remain about how Downey will step into the new role, after famously portraying Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, for 11 years in the MCU until his demise in Avengers: Endgame in 2019. Downey made no secret of his love for the role and his willingness — in fact, his outright desire — to return to Marvel. But with Feige stating repeatedly that he didn’t want to do anything that steps on or ruins Tony Stark’s honorable sendoff in Endgame, the only way for Downey to return was with a bit of clever retooling of history.
Fantastic Four: First Steps will feature Galactus and the Silver Surfer as antagonists, so it’s unclear if Downey’s Doom will appear there. However, from Feige’s comments, we can probably infer that Doom won’t make his full grand entrance until Avengers: Doomsday, since the cotext was the need to introduce Doom ahead of Secret Wars (in which he plays a central role, no matter which version/elements of the Secret Wars comic book inspiration wind up adapted) and therefore to change Avengers: The Kang Dynasty into Avengers: Doomsday.
With Fantastic Four: First Steps starting production last week, we will probably start to get more information and eventual set photos pretty soon. Which means if Downey is making an appearance in any fashion, we’ll probably going to find out. Meanwhile, the Russos will get to make the movie they’ve long talked about as a dream project, because of the comic that most inspired them as youths — Secret Wars.
Welcome home, everybody.