Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread
- Thread starter bbjeg
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There is always a possibility that Doom uses some kind of magic or tech to impersonate Stark at some point; but it seems that we will not be seeing RDJs actual face--or am I misunderstanding?
I've speculated that we might not see his face, since we never see Doom's face in the comics -- and it does sound like they want to do Doom accurately this time. But we don't know one way or the other.
Even if we do see Doom's face, that doesn't mean he'd be seen by the characters as a lookalike for Tony Stark. Did you see Downey in Oppenheimer? He looked nothing like Tony there. Makeup and performance can do wonders.
I still also think we got to consider that is a misdirect. They want to hide the Stark connection or just keep it a mystery so people keep talking about it. One telling though also I think is when we get closer to the movie and seeing if Pepper,Happy or Starks daughter is going to also be in the movie. That would for sure raise doubts that he won't be a Stark variant. At the very least I think they will have to address the issue about why he looks like Stark. Unless they keep the mask on but I don't think they would do that. Not for two whole movies.
If they are planning on being faithful to the comics, if Doom is shown without a mask then the face should still be unrecognizable regardless of the actor. Way way back, RDJ was lauded as the next great actor our time because of his ability to "become" a part then his real world addictions took their toll on his career. By the 00s, he was just beginning to get good roles again and then struck gold with Iron Man. Now, it seems like he really wants to get back into "serious" actor territory--so I have no doubt he would look, sound, and act entirely different from Tony Stark if that is what Marvel wants.
Yes, that's what I've been hoping, and it sounds like it is indeed the case. They wouldn't have succeeded in drawing him back by saying "Let's do more of the same stuff you already got tired of," but by saying "Here's a totally new acting challenge we can give you."
It still seems a little odd to me, but I figure that if Josh Keaton could go from playing Spidey in The Spectacular Spider-Man to playing Norman Osborn in Marvel's Spider-Man, or if Diedrich Bader could go from playing Batman in The Brave and the Bold to playing Two-Face in Caped Crusader, then there's no reason Downey can't go from playing Iron Man to playing Doctor Doom. Especially since it may well be largely a voice role.
I think the difference is fan expectations. Fans love him as Tony Stark so even if he does a good job in the role I still feel many fans will walk away disappointed. It would be like getting Shatner back for SNW only he is not going to be playing Kirk. He will be playing a Romulan leader. It would be unique and maybe fun to some disagree but many people would just really want to see him playing Kirk one last time. Even a variation of Kirk like a Kirk clone or something.
Spare me from the tyranny of fan expectations. How can a story surprise, delight, or enlighten you if it never shows you anything beyond what you already expect?
Maybe it's more like Smallville getting Christopher Reeve to play Clark Kent's mentor, or the Arrowverse getting John Wesley Shipp to play the Flash's mentor and Dean Cain and Helen Slater to play Supergirl's adoptive parents. It's not a bad thing for an actor to play more than one role. People who find that wrong or threatening are simply narrow-minded and unimaginative, and the rest of us should refuse to be reined in by their limitations.
I don't really have a dog in this fight but I'd be surprised with the dollars involved if we didn't see Downey's face in some manner.
We have never seen the faces of Josh Brolin, Vin Diesel, and Bradley Cooper in the multiple MCU movies they've co-starred in.
They weren't paid $79M+ either.
Yeah but those are all new shows, we need to find an example of a second character in the same continuity (live action).
I find it depressing that some people think artists only base their decisions on money. It's deeply unflattering and cynical.
There are several examples already in the MCU, if you count the TV series -- Gemma Chan, Alfre Woodard, Tony Curran, Enver Gjokaj, Tsai Chin, Mahershala Ali (if a Blade movie ever happens), David Dastmalchian (counting voice roles), etc. There was also this guy called Stan Lee...
In Universal Monsters, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., Evelyn Ankers, and others all played two or more roles in the series. Lionel Atwill played five different characters in five consecutive Frankenstein movies, although three or four of them were interchangeable policemen or village officials. Same for Godzilla/kaiju movies -- there are many actors who played multiple different characters over the course of the series, most of all Kenji Sahara, who was in well over a dozen Toho kaiju films, only twice reprising a previous character.
Of course, Star Trek has a bunch -- Majel Barrett, Diana Muldaur, William Campbell, Gene Dynarski, Morgan Woodward, Vaughn Armstrong, Armin Shimerman, Max Grodenchik, Jeffrey Combs, Salome Jens, W. Morgan Sheppard, David Benjamin Tomlinson, Kenneth Mitchell, etc. Doctor Who has plenty, including a number of regulars who'd previously played guest characters -- Peter Purves, Nicholas Courtney, Colin Baker, Freema Agyeman, Karen Gillan, Peter Capaldi, and Varadha Sethu next season.
I'm not speaking of RDJ's demands here. But someone putting up that kind of money probably has some kind of expectations of what they are getting in return. There's practical reasons that they aren't paying every actor that kind of money. They expect that money is going to see returns in getting butts in seats so I could see those ponying up those dollars might have such expectations.
Again, I think that's a cynical assumption. Looking at the article, it sounds like Downey and Feige/etc. were both thinking in terms of how to do something new, how to create an effective and authentic take on Doom as a character, and how to make it worthy of Downey's talents. I think trying to reduce that to a conversation about dollar signs is soulless and simplistic, and I want no part of that.
I don't think with Doom you can have the constant unmaskings like with Tony or the out of armor scenes. Though I suppose there is no real reason Doom has to be armored up all the time. (Well maybe paranoia 
)
Ryan Reynolds spends most of his time the the Deadpool movies wearing a mask or in make up. I assume he's pulling down quite a paycheck. Pedro Pascal is masked in The Mandalorian (Sometimes it's a stunt guy or body double) and must have a hefty salary. So I don't think the idea that RDJ will spend a lot time masked as Doom is too far fetched even with his 57M payday. They could give him some "face time" in flashbacks, perhaps with the aforementioned Pedro Pascal.
RDJ will no doubt have to double down on his voice and body acting.
) Ryan Reynolds spends most of his time the the Deadpool movies wearing a mask or in make up. I assume he's pulling down quite a paycheck. Pedro Pascal is masked in The Mandalorian (Sometimes it's a stunt guy or body double) and must have a hefty salary. So I don't think the idea that RDJ will spend a lot time masked as Doom is too far fetched even with his 57M payday. They could give him some "face time" in flashbacks, perhaps with the aforementioned Pedro Pascal.
RDJ will no doubt have to double down on his voice and body acting.
At least in season 3, it was almost always Brendan Wayne or Lateef Crowder in the suit, with Pascal just doing the voice, because he's been busy filming his other series at the same time. Basically the same as David Prowse and James Earl Jones as Darth Vader.
On the other hand, Marvel usually shot Iron Man scenes by digitally animating the armor on top of Downey performing on set in a motion-capture suit, which strikes me as an odd way to go about it, since the only performance you're getting other than voice is the body language. But I wouldn't be surprised if they do Doom the same way.
Ragnarok was supposed to make Thor (and his solo stories) more appealing. Instead, it turned him into a buffoon, and that's been his characterization ever since. The character's best outing was his 1st movie, where Hemsworth came pretty close to some of the comic's best interpretations of Thor.
Why would he--a man dealing with serious problems in his real life--care about how he "goes out" in his acting career? Further, if he wanted to go out on a high, it would likely be in some adult-oriented film, rather than yet another Marvel movie.