"I don't get it, are you a baddie now?"
The MCU's latest piece of casting caused quite a stir this weekend – with the news that former Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr was returning to the franchise to play villain Doctor Doom in the upcoming Avengers movies Doomsday and Secret Wars.
The announcement was made at Marvel's San Diego Comic-Con 2024 panel on Saturday night (27th July), and was immediately greeted with something of a stunned response – although it's fair to say that people were divided on whether it was a genius move or a somewhat cynical one.
Meanwhile, others were simply confused by the announcement. Take Downey Jr's former Avengers co-star Gwyneth Paltrow, who took to Instagram to express her puzzlement at the news.
Commenting on Downey Jr's post announcing the news, she wrote: "I don't get it, are you a baddie now?"
Of course, it isn't the first time that Paltrow – who played Tony Stark’s love interest Pepper Potts in several films – has seemed a little unclear about events in the MCU.
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Indeed, back in 2019 it was revealed she wasn't even sure which MCU films she'd starred in, when she declared, "We weren't in Spider-Man," despite her appearance in Spider Man: Homecoming.
Still, on this occasion, her confused reaction is an understandable one. It's only been five years since Downey Jr bid farewell to his most iconic character in Avengers: Endgame, and the idea of him returning at all – never mind as an arch-villain – seemed very far-fetched before it was announced.
At this stage, it isn't clear if this version of Doctor Doom is somehow connected to Tony Stark – perhaps an alternate variant – or if this casting is completely unrelated to his previous role. We'll just have to wait and see...
Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars will release in May 2026 and May 2027 respectively.
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Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
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