A little under a year ago, Marvel Studios dropped the bombshell news at San Diego Comic-Con that Robert Downey Jr. was returning to the MCU to play Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. And it wasn’t just the general public that was surprised by Downey’s involvement in these two upcoming Marvel movies. Chris Evans, who starred opposite the Iron Man actor in multiple MCU movies as Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, was also part of the crows, and he used a pizza analogy while describing how he reacted to the big news last summer.
Evans has been making the press rounds to talk about Materialists, the 2025 movie release he stars in opposite Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal. But naturally Marvel-related subjects have also been coming up, and while speaking with ScreenRant, he had this to say about RDJ’s return while seated next to Johnson:
When I first heard it, I was like, 'Huh?' But it's almost like cheese and the crust. You're like, 'There's nothing more we can do with this pizza,' and then you're like, 'Oh, damn. You know? What else? What if we did this? (makes flipping motion). Whoa.'
Anyone else hungry for pizza now? I can understand Chris Evans’ initial confusion since that’s how I felt when the news about Robert Downey Jr.’s new role in the MCU. After all, Tony Stark sacrificed his life in Avengers: Endgame to wipe Thanos and his army from existence, bringing an end to his 11-year story. Sure, there was the possibility of a Tony Stark variant from another universe showing up, but I sincerely didn’t think Downey would return to this franchise so soon.
But evidently Marvel Studios found another way to prepare the proverbial pizza, and now Robert Downey Jr.’s will get to leave a villainous imprint on the MCU after more than a decade of playing a hero. Chris Evans sounds like he’s eager to see how RDJ does playing Doctor Doom, and this casting actually establishes another connective thread between them. Doom is traditionally depicted as the Fantastic Four’s arch-nemesis, and before he was cast as Captain America, he played Johnny Storm, a.k.a. The Human Torch, in the Fantastic Four movies from the 2000s, as well as in last year’s Deadpool & Wolverine.
Although there have been rumors that Chris Evans will return to the MCU as well, potentially even by making a cameo appearance in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, he denied this back in January. So assuming he’s telling the truth, he’ll get to see with the rest of us how Robert Downey Jr. does playing Doctor Doom when Avengers: Doomsday is released on December 17, 2026.
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