Julian McMahon, who portrayed Victor Von Doom / Doctor Doom in 2005’s Fantastic Four and its 2007 sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, has given a big thumbs up to the casting of Robert Downey Jr. as the character in the MCU. Marvel Studios revealed at the July 2024 SDCC that Downey Jr., who previously played Tony Stark / Iron Man in the franchise, would return as Doctor Doom.
Julian McMahon thinks Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom will be ‘extraordinary’
The Nip/Tuck actor appeared at SXSW 2025 to promote his movie, The Surfer, and expressed his support for Downey Jr. and his upcoming portrayal of Doctor Doom.
During an interview with Screen Rant, Julian McMahon noted that Downey Jr’s “body of work speaks for itself” and called the other man “super talented.” He added, “I love watching his work.”
Reflecting on the Fantastic Four movies he was part of, McMahon mused that he and his co-workers on those projects “were at the [precipice] of all that stuff happening.” He stated that they needed to find their way “a lot” and “figure out what space the [first] movie itself lived in” and what its tone would be.
McMahon, a cast member of Marvel’s Runaways (Hulu, 2017-2019), further underscored the changes that the superhero genre had experienced in the last 15 years or so. “I think now that there’s so many different realms of establishment of the way that you look at those pieces, you can pretty much do so many different things now,” he said, before voicing his belief that Downey Jr. would be “extraordinary” as Doctor Doom.
“If you’ve got Robert Downey Jr, who’s one of the great creatives of the last however many years we’ve been watching him for, mixed with the elements of how we can make movies these days? I think it’s going to be pretty extraordinary,” Julian McMahon stated.
Avengers: Doomsday premieres in US theaters on May 1, 2026.
Originally reported by Tamal Kundu on SuperHeroHype.
