Robert Downey Jr. reassures fans ‘Avengers: Doomsday' will be ‘epic'

Robert Downey Jr. has broken his silence on Avengers: Doomsday, promising fans the film will "more than suffice", and hinting there is something genuinely new at its core that addresses the question every Marvel fan has been asking since Endgame.

Speaking to CBR alongside co-director Joe Russo, Downey was careful not to give anything away, but his confidence in the project was unmistakable. 

"It's not even about how I executed it. It's about the way it's been structured, and the other characters. There's something going on in Doomsday and forward that is literally the only antidote to: How do you not have these films be let down after an Infinity War and an Endgame? And boy, have we labored long and hard to bring that down."

What exactly that antidote is, neither Downey nor Russo was willing to spell out. 

But Russo added his own layer of assurance, describing the film as "the most emotionally complex of all of them" and "in a lot of ways, the most mature." 

He also promised "a lot of surprises."

Downey, who returns to the MCU not as Tony Stark but as the villainous Doctor Doom, spoke about the experience with evident gratitude. 

"There's an incredible amount of gratitude we have going into these two. One epic at a time. Doomsday… just the gratitude to be able to do it. To still be engaging with people who are critical when we fall short, but who understand how difficult it is when we get it right."

The stakes are considerable. 

Downey's original run as Iron Man ended with his character's death in Avengers: Endgame in 2019, a moment that remains one of the most emotionally resonant in the franchise's history. 

In the years since, Marvel's output has been uneven, Spider-Man: No Way Home and Deadpool vs. Wolverine delivered at the box office, while The Marvels and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania fell considerably short.

Doomsday, which also sets up the follow-up Avengers: Secret Wars, is clearly being positioned as the reset the franchise needs. 

It opens in cinemas on 18 December from Disney and Marvel Studios.