ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Doctor Doom and Iron Man Connection CONFIRMED - MCU Reboot Explained

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

Doctor Doom is connected to Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man says Doomsday and Secret Wars directors, the Russo Brothers! They also discuss the upcoming MCU reboot and how these two Avengers films are a new "beginning."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, welcome back to Screen Crush. I'm Colton Ogburn and the directors of Avengers Doomsday and Avengers Secret Wars, the Russo brothers, have just confirmed that Robert Downey Jr.'s casting as Dr. Doom is based upon a direct connection between the character of Dr. Doom and the character of Tony Stark in the story that they are telling. So when the Russo say, The one person who could play Victor von Doom. They mean it because the story calls for Dr. Doom to be, or at least to look like, the same guy who played Iron Man and Tony Stark. So let's break down some of the quotes from this interview with the Russo brothers who not only confirmed this direct connection between Doom and Stark, but we also need to

talk about their confirmation of an upcoming MCU reboot and how the story of Doomsday and Secret Wars isn't an ending but a new beginning. A little later, I'll be joined by my friend Tommy But first, I was right! Ah, here he goes. Let him take his victory, Latman. He doesn't get very many. But while Colton's celebrating, remember to check out our merch store where we have shirts like this. I hate you 3,000, America's ass, and all of our Daredevil Born Against shirts.

Plus, right now we're trying to get rid of all of our old shirts, so we have a massive sale going on right now through the end of the month. Check out the links below. Oh, sorry. Okay. since the announcement of RDJ returning to the MCU to play Dr. Victor von Doom, I thought it was pretty obvious that, of course, this would be a variant of Tony Stark. I mean, you don't cast the main protagonist from your previous saga as the main antagonist of your following saga, a saga called the Multiverse Saga, which is all about the very concept of people with the same

face being vastly different characters in the vastness of the multiverse. You don't do all that and not have them be variance. So, I was honestly surprised when I got so much pushback on the claim that Doom and Stark would be variants. Many suggested that this was simply an actor being cast in a different role, and that the characters in story wouldn't be aware of or acknowledge the fact that this Doom guy looks like Tony Stark, which... I don't really know how anyone thought that they were going to do that, but I digress.

So, some also claimed that since in the announcement of RDJ's casting at Comic the Russo said he'd be playing Victor von Doom. They thought that that somehow meant that the case was settled and he and Tony would not be variants, which again, I was a little baffled by that because we have seen in the multiverse saga in shows like Loki and in movies like Spider-Man No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness,

we have seen that characters can share names and have different faces and still be variants of one another, but they can also share faces and have different names and still be variants of one another. Take the many versions of Kang, for example. We have Ramatut, Victor Timely, Kang, He Who Remains. They're all variants of the same being, but they all have different names,

different lives, and different ways of doing things. The Multiverse saga is all about how varying circumstances and choices can have countless outcomes. And in What If Season 3, we saw several examples of various characters in the multiverse becoming other Marvel characters. We saw Storm as Black Panther, Kohori as Apocalypse, Riri Williams Punisher, Blade Moon Knight, Wolverine Thanos, Silver Surfer Jubilee, Star Lord Shang-Chi, I could go on. And here's the thing, Tony Stark and Victor von Doom are strikingly similar characters.

So it's easy to see how the slightest change of events in the grand calculus of the multiverse could result in Tony Stark going a very different path and becoming Dr. Doom. I've talked to ad nauseum here on the channel about how and why this casting makes so much sense. And I've made my argument of Tony Stark and Doom being so damn similar. So feel free to check those videos out. I won't rehash them here. But a little later, I do want to share with you all my personal theory on how Tony and Doom will be connected in this story that they've got cooking for Doom State and Secret Wars. But first, I want to check in with Tommy.

All right, so Tommy, this casting has been controversial at best. And at our live shows, we usually get like this resounding boo when we ask the audience what they think about R.DJ playing Dr. Doom. And, you know, I get it. I get that it might feel a little desperate. It feels a little cheap. And, you know, I guarantee you it wasn't cheap monetarily. Yeah, right. But, you know, this isn't going to be cheap to make.

But, you know, I've always thought that for the multiverse saga, having your main hero from the previous saga be your main villain and the next, I've always thought that was a pretty cool. idea, especially when there is like a comic precedent for it and the characters are so much alike. So I want to ask you, remind me what your thoughts on RDJ being cast, you know, originally back at Comic-Con. What were your thoughts on that? And does this confirmation from the Russo's about this connection between the characters? Does that make you more or less excited? Yes. Well, first of all, Colton, they're not booing. They're saying boom, because they're big AJ and big Justice fans. They love the Costco guys. And honestly, they just, they love Robert Downey Jr., who I consider the unofficial third Costco guy.

But I was a fan from this, I was a fan of this from day one. I, you know, I was at Comic-Con. I wasn't in the panel when it happened, but I remember the energy around it was like, you know, maybe it was a little phantom menacey where it was like just the announcement got everyone excited and then people started to think about it. But I, listen, I love Robert Downey Jr. as an actor and I love his, like, you know, his, his pathway to getting the role of Tony Stark is very inspiring to me. I trust the process in this. You know, I get it. It's a little bit like,

how is this going to work? And is this ham-fisted or whatever? But I'm kind of on board with the idea of like, you're taking the face of the MCU phases one through, what, three basically? Yeah. This is one through four. And it's like, you're making him the big bad in a Avengers movie. movie, it's like, I can't, I have to trust that the people that brought us Infinity War and Endgame are going to nail this. And I know that that may make me seem like a Disney Homer, but like, I'm sorry, I just root for these movies to be good. Like, I don't, you know, there's a great phrase in recovery that's like, don't hold contempt prior to investigation. And it's like,

you know, it's very helpful in the sense of like, yes, sure, there's a lot of reasons I can sit here and pick apart with no knowledge of the film, having never seen the screen. And screenplay, you know, not knowing anything about the production of Doomsday, there's a lot of armchair analysis I can give. And like, and all of that is finding good. But at the end of the day, this is one of my favorite actors starring as one of my favorite comic book characters. So I'm going in with a positive attitude. Yeah, me too, because I get that it can feel like, oh, they're just going back to that well. And maybe it feels like they're admitting like defeat on maybe a not so great saga so far, you and I have liked a lot of it. I personally disliked a lot of it. It's certainly

not as good as the Infinity saga. So when you're recasting a character or having an actor play like a different character in the same franchise, that's something that's been done before. And while we as the audience recognize it, the characters like in universe aren't aware of it, I'm curious, Tommy, don't you think that it would have been super weird if they had brought back R.D.J. to play Dr. Doom and we didn't see Spider-Man, like, say shit about him looking like Mr. Stark. I just think that would have been super weird. 100%. And, like, what would have been the point to it? You know, like, we are now set up for these massive emotional reactions from these characters who lost their leader, right? They lost the guy who was, who put

together the Avengers with Nick Fury. It's like, they're now, they're now going to become face to face with him and he's the bad guy. It's like that is to me the opportunity for drama and high stakes in this film. Droms. Yes. Love drums. Droms. I love the drama. Okay. So I'm looking at my notes here. They did this interview with an outlet called Omlet. And part of the report that I'm seeing here is apparently Kevin Feigy went to Robert Downey Jr. about this idea of him coming back is doomed. And then R.D.J. went to the Russo brothers about it. And at first, they said no. They didn't want to come back. But then there was a story that McPhile, one of the writers of Infinity War and Endgame, and hell, he may have also wrote on maybe Civil War and Wintersold. I think he wrote a couple

of the Captain America movies, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. And it's usually him and his brother, right? Are they brothers or their partners? Is it Christopher McPhile and Stephen Marcus? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Marcus and McPhile. Yeah. Um, so McFeeley had an idea and he pitched it to the Russo's and that's when they got on board. So my question is, what, what story? What story could they have possibly, could he have possibly pitched to the Russo's that convinced them to come back? Kevin Feigy couldn't convince them. R.D.J. couldn't convince them. I'm wondering what story could they have possibly brought to the Russo's to make them say, okay.

we'll come back. They're saying, there's a direct quote here. Like, the question was about how do you bring him back after we saw him die as Tony? And their response was, is that we can't answer that because it's, that's tied into the story. So is it a multiversal variant thing? I've wondered before, is it like, Doom is dream walking and Tony's corpse or something from what do you think? Well, I have to give credit to master t my my dear friend love him to you know he he has been positing on twitter or x all week that we have been introduced to this possibility of people's souls entering other bodies right through agatha is that was that intentional to kind of set the stage for the spirit of or the soul of

dr doom to enter victor von doom to enter tony stark's body at the moment of his death you know or or or somewhere around the time of his death. And to me, that was the first time I had even, you know, considered that after reading it from MTA. But to me, that presents maybe the most compelling and linear storytelling way for this to happen. It's like, we know that this happens in this universe because it happened to Billy.

So is that what we're facing now, a situation where this, like, profoundly powerful soul of Victor von Doom is possessing the body of Tony Stark and in that case what does that mean you know like is it is it is it well i mean obviously it's meant to be temporary i don't think we're going to have robert duny junior in like 10 more movies it would be great if you did but it's like you know it's probably some it's probably a disposable method to get to another to get to a proper dr doom you know an actor who's going to carry that character well you know i've always said that if they brought in rdj to play doom

and he wasn't like a multiversal variant if that if it wasn't part of the story. They were just like, oh, hey, it's Robert Dernie Jr. We'll have them play Dr. Do. I would have hated the casting then. I would have been on that team, boo, or what is it?

Boom. Sorry. I'm boom instead of boo. But I would have been boo. I still prefer that they do the variant thing. I think that's the story that they're setting up with the multiverse. That's what's been established in Loki. I like the idea of them simply being variants of one another.

But I have to say, and I follow M.T. I'm surprised that I missed that tweet. That's a really good theory because, like you said, they set it up in Agatha, this idea of when somebody dies, a soul goes in. I love the idea of maybe Doom's spirit being lost in the multiverse. Yeah, just traveling the multiverse, like this race. Oh, my gosh. It's just like floating around nebulously. And probably it speaks to Doom's ego that only the, the, the,

The husk of an intellectual powerhouse like Tony Stark could house his greatness, you know? Like, it's like... Yeah. Yeah, because there are plenty of people dying all the time, but he wanted somebody special. Ooh, I really like that. And that was also set up not only in Agatha. We've seen that set up in multiverse of madness, in a sense, not the dying part, but with the dark hold. The dark hold, then being able to dream walk and put their essence in another body.

usually that's you can put your essence in a variance of yourself but I would assume a master of the mystic arts like doom he could figure out how to utilize it to go into a different body or hell maybe they do both maybe they are variants but he died so he's hopping into his other variant which in this reality is Tony Stark but there's still variance of one of there I would like that if they did both and not one or the other like they are variants but he's also possessing sure the body of ours yeah Okay, so I'm really digging that. Full credit to MT for that theory. That is awesome. Okay, so another part of the interview, they mentioned, the Russo Brothers mentioned that they did an ending. They told an ending story with Infinity War and Endgame. And they are saying that with Doomsday and Secret Wars, they are now getting to tell a beginning story, which I thought is really interesting because Doomsday and Secret Wars, those are these big Avengers movies. We haven't gotten Avengers movie since end game. So I guess in a sense, yeah, it's the first Avengers movie of this saga, so it feels like a beginning. But it's also at the very end of phase six, four, five, and six. It feels like that would be the capper to this saga. I guess in a way they're saying that it's both like an ending and a beginning. And they suggested in this interview, by the way, guys, if you want to watch a great interview, watch this interview that Omlet did with the Russo Brothers.

It's really good. But they kind of suggest there's like a halfway point, whether that be right in between these two movies or maybe some point in doomsday, some point in Secret Wars, where this story stops being a closer and turns into a first chapter of a new story. I'm thinking this is the MCU reboot, the in-universe reboot, like a soft thing. Well, what are you thinking about that? Yeah, well, I, you know, I have a tough time wrapping my brain around the fact that a lot of these movies are going to take place. on battle world. Like I know that it's this iconic location in the comics, but it's like, to the average moviegoer, it's kind of a tough sell to be like, oh, it's this new world. Like in my head, I picture like it's this giant American Ninja Warrior course. It's like

all these like worlds kind of patchwork together like a quilt to make this battle world. It's like, well, are there any stakes? It's kind of like wrapping your brain around the idea of an afterlife. It's like, well, is there currency in battle world? Are there politicians? Is there, can I go to a 7-Eleven and get a Dieterrie Coke in Battleworld? Like, and I know that seems- There's only Doom. Yeah, there's just, there's Doom coin. It's a meme coin and it's going to the moon.

Doom to the moon, baby. But yeah, I, you know, I just, for me, someone who, you know, I've read lots of comics and I've seen all the movies and I consider myself a fan, by no means an expert, I have trouble with this like, what is the, why do I care about battle world, you know, if it's just going to be this reset. But I think why we care is because it's going to be this kind of soft relaunch of the MCU of introducing new versions of these beloved characters or new, you know, new actors in the roles or just new personalities to the characters or new, you know, new relationships and new alliances. So for me, the excitement in

battle world is that it is kind of this Garden of Eden, you know, albeit full of violence, but It's like all of this creation of this new universe and who better to, you know, plant the seeds of the next 20 years of MCU movies than the guys who kind of, in my opinion, expertly landed the cargo jet in end game, you know? It's like, let's give credit where credits do it. I don't think it's being a shill to say that those movies were fantastic and, no pun intended. But it's like, you know, we all, I mean, if you weren't emotionally moved by those films, I don't know what to tell you.

I don't know what you're looking for in these movies. and if they can add, if they can recreate that magic and that emotional response in fans, it's exactly what the MCU needs right now because right now it does feel no, again, no pun intended, a little soulless. Like a lot of the projects have felt like they lack this like, I don't just, I just don't care about these characters as much.

Like there are certainly some characters that I love and even some characters that maybe I don't care. I don't feel, it cares maybe too extreme. I don't feel the attachment to these characters. that I felt. You're not as invested. Yeah, I'm not, I don't have the same investment. Now, maybe that's because I'm getting older and I have other things going on in my life. Like, that could all be possible. But there's something about sitting through those movies and even sitting through, you know, civil war and, and, you know, the first Black Panther movie and, and, like, there's something

about the way those movies made me feel that I haven't really gotten, I haven't had that feeling. And to me, these movies, and to a certain degree of the Fantastic Four film coming up, and, you know, not to cross over, but James Gunn Superman, I have that hope that I'm going to get, I'm going to have that feeling again when going to these films. And to me, as a fan, I can't ask for more than that. Let me, let me go back real quick to your point about Battleworld. I hope, because yes, that is a very, I mean, it's a simple concept, but it's also kind of out there. Now, I, I know Marvel has fully embraced going, going out there. And it seems that the audience, even the general audience has been willing to go with them there.

I think that it would make most sense to, like I love when Marvel goes off the beaten path a little bit from the comics and they use things that they've already established in the MCU to set up other things. Like introducing Adamantium, they're saying it was on a Celestial. I think that's cool. That's not what's done in the comics, but it's cool that they did that. I think in the comics it was actually a vibranium that Celestial was made out of. Or maybe it was a different mill.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. I think you're right, yeah. I like the idea of the void being battle world because the void is something that's already been established. We understand it. It was in Loki, which I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I would assume is probably the most watched Disney Plus Marvel show. Definitely the most beloved. Maybe up there with Wanda Vision, of course. Yeah, I was going to say, yeah.

They've established the void there. And then Deadpool and Wolverine, everybody saw Deadpool and Wolverine. they understand the void and also that ties into okay if we're seeing the multiverse die every universe dies all that would be left is the void so it makes sense that that is where doom would form his battle world we saw cassandra nova and deadpool and wolverine talk about how she wanted to destroy every reality until there was just the void if they want to get away from the multiverse stuff after secret wars and have like this new one universe that it no longer has to deal with the multiverse and the multiversal tree, making

sure incursions don't happen. What if they just, the void seems to be like impervious to all of this multiverse stuff? Right. But if that's the new universe, we see Battleworld become this new universe, and that's how you incorporate all of these characters into it, because they're just, they're in the void, it gets a little complicated because you still have duplicates of others, but maybe there's like this big like shift or something and they yeah they use reality manipulation that's where uh doom's uh you know going after wanda could come in he could use wanda like for what we were talking

about with the soul transfer and stuff like that but also reality manipulation and then that plays into the comics when doom used wanda what are your thoughts on my my big theory dump there i i like it you know in a way it's almost kind of like another snap right like it's like if there's this cosmic moment where all these characters kind of fuse into one soul you see all these variants kind of becoming one one one one being it's like yes that is technically uh akin to the snap where we lose 50 percent it's like we're losing more than that it's like we'll lose like 90 percent if not if you know there's 10 variants of captain america and they become one you know sam wilson it's like that is uh that that that's that's a that's a that's a snap to the nth degree yet it's not it's not

such a tragic snap, it's more of a clarifying snap, right? Like, it's like, it's like some ad, it's an administrative snap. Like, it's a, so I, I like the idea of that, again, it's just kind of like, is the audience going to go along with like, okay, they're going to have to

quickly make the void look a lot like Earth, is my thought. Like, it's going to have to be. That's true. But I like it. I mean, I don't think that that should be a deterrent. I just think, like, in terms of, you take your average, average moviegoer, who, Like, you know, probably knows Spider-Man, knows the X-Men, knows the Fantastic Four,

certainly knows all of the Avengers that were created now. And it's like, how do you get them to buy into 20 more years of movies? It's like you kind of got to make it look at least a little bit like what it did look like. You can introduce new characters, new plots, new stories, new powers, new abilities. But the setting kind of needs to be familiar. And that doesn't mean boring because the familiar settings include the galaxy. as we have three Guardians of the Galaxy movies and a Captain Marvel movie

that take us into the far reaches of outer space. We have Eternals for better or for worse introduced that we can explore all of their, you know, what's going on in their lives. So we have Thor, you know, we have, you know, I mean, Asgard is now new Asgard, but like, you know, ostensibly Asgard can be reborn now with this change and it's like, you know,

there's endless possibility in the kind of rebirth of the MCU, I think that, you know, you just, you have to make people feel safe in the law, like, you have to make them feel confident and that they understand where this new beginning is taking place and how the world works, you know, like, that's where the world building is so important in these movies. It's like, you got to get the audience on board with, this is how this world works. Now, these are how the people act in this world. Well, and my question about the void is the more you dissected that for me

maybe not have I still love the idea of void being battle world maybe though at the end of Secret Wars we do see like a new universe created but my question about the void is like we don't know much about it like we see the sky in the void what

what would happen if you got in a ship and flew into the sky in the void do you leave the void is there sure is there open space around it like maybe that area where this maybe we'll learn that the void is like a planet that that would be cool to learn and that it's just yeah yeah like a planet out there in the in the universe or something or one of these famous pocket dimensions we love to talk about so much you know with uh where maybe maybe

maybe finally mephisto will be revealed in the void finally get some mefisto and that goes back to agatha we finally got that name drop but i do just want to add you made the point about like will the audience go along with this? I think a good way of being able to predict that is we have seen like general audiences are very familiar with like the concept of time travel movies and at the end of a lot of time travel movies we see like the timeline get reset and oh everything's hunky dory now to cite a Marvel film. We saw that happen in Days of Future Pass when he wakes up in the new future.

I remember being in high school taking my grandma. want to see that. I don't think she had ever seen another X-Men movie. She fully followed. Yep. She understood. She got it. No problem. She's a smart lady, but she's not a big comic book gal. She got it. She understood. So I think that utilizing that type of storytelling and bringing time travel into the multiverse stuff, that is a way to keep general audiences on board. Tommy, I want to thank you so much for joining me. You guys can find Tommy socials down in the description below. And Tommy, I got to get back to work. My break is almost over. Yeah, I was going to say, unfortunately, I got to get back to work. But thank you so much for having me. Of course. And while Tommy

takes his break, I want to share with you guys my personal theory on how they could handle a Tony Stark variant of Doom in this new MCU. So look, I'm not just happy about being right. I like being right. But I'm primarily happy because I think that this is the most interesting way to tell a Dr. Doom story. Making him a variant of Tony Stark takes away the need for an origin story and expositional backstory and a lot of the setup you would have to do in this short runtime up to Doomsday in Secret Wars. By casting RDJ and having him be a variant of Tony Stark, they can now build upon the emotional impact of the story we MCU fans have been following for 17 years.

Dr. Doom is a character who is full of himself, an absolute badass, a genius, and he thinks he's right about everything and knows the best path forward. And guys, Doom is a master of the mystic arts in the comic. So imagine us getting to see Tony go through those same trials as Stephen Strange, having to break free from the confines of his logical mind and embrace magic and then mastering the mystic arts super quickly because he is so freaking smart and a fast learner. When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics? Last night.

Imagine us getting to see a version of Tony who hit rock bottom like Stephen Strange and sought out help to fix his hands. Maybe in this universe, Tony's mind and science couldn't save him from his shrapnel injury, and he had to turn to the mystic arts. These are just some of the many possibilities that we could get with this story. And, you know, some say, well, if you want that story, just make him an evil Tony Stark. Why does he have to be Dr. Doom? And fine, I take your point.

But my question is, why not? It's been done in the comics, the characters are two sides of the same coin, and all the building blocks have been laid. And sure, the multiverse aspect could be used to just do an evil Ironman. But this is more than that. We're embracing the idea of how in the vastness of the multiverse, an individual can become a completely different person with the slightest change. So why not have that story reveal that in some universes,

this guy that we recognize as Tony Stark, he actually becomes the most menacing and powerful force to be reckoned with in the entire multiverse. Plus, it's just cool, quit whining. We've gotten doom in other movies, and it wasn't great. and we can have him again in future movies and not have him be connected to Tony Stark. Let's have some fun in this multiverse saga, though. Let's have some fun right now and just do it. We can do it now, and then we can do it the other way later, see which one's better.

Do it! Just do it! So, guys, I want to hear your thoughts on all of this down in the comments below, and if you're new here, be sure to subscribe and smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Colton Ogburn. I don't know. Thank you.