Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige has spoken about Marvel’s plans to replace Jonathan Majors’ Kang with Robert Downey Jr as Doctor Doom long before the controversies that arose with Jonathan Majors. Robert Downey Jr will star as Doctor Doom in the crossover multiversal event Avengers: Doomsday.
Reported by THR, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige explained that the studio started to consider the idea of moving the focus from Kang to Doctor Doom long before Ant-Man 3 even came out. According to Fiege, the acquisition of Twentieth Century Fox opened the door of having Doctor Doom as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next big bad.
Feige then began to have conversations with Downey Jr about a villain role. You can read the full comment below.
“We had started even before what had happened to the actor happened; we had started to realize that Kang wasn’t big enough, wasn’t Thanos, and that there was only one character that could be that, because he was that in the comics for decades and decades,” said Feige. “Because of the Fox acquisition, we finally had it, and it was Dr. Doom. So we had started talking about Dr. Doom even before we officially pivoted from Kang. And in fact, I had started talking with Robert [Downey Jr.] about this audacious idea before Ant-Man 3 even came out. It was a long plan that we had to take one of our greatest characters and utilize one of our greatest actors.“
While the MCU has somewhat been trying to course-correct itself in the past few years, Disney’s acquisition of Twentieth Century Fox was always a desirable scenario for Marvel Studios, but it was not a certainty. Once the deal was complete, the main focus was bringing in characters like The Fantastic Four, X-Men, and of course, Doctor Doom.
But what do you think? Should Jonathan Major’s return as Kang, whether that be as a big bad or a one-and-done film to say “goodbye” to the character, or do you think he should not return at all and slide his character under the rug of Doctor Doom?
