What could be better than Robert Downey Jr. returning to the MCU in upcoming two-part Multiverse Saga-ending event, Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars? How about if he’s joined by the rest of the franchise’s founding Avengers?
What was once a pipe-dream suddenly just got a whole lot more likely. Not just because of Downey’s surprise casting as Doctor Doom, meaning the former greatest hero of the Marvel multiverse is now its greatest threat, but because one of the Iron Man icon’s old pals is going so far as to tease that all six of the original lineup of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes will feature alongside him in either one or both of these movies.
While speaking to US Weekly, Hawkeye himself Jeremy Renner admitted that Downey kept his grand comeback as Victor Von Doom a secret from even his fellow founding Avengers, not even dropping a sneaky tease into the group chat. That said, Renner is delighted by the development and is “really, really excited” to see Downey in the metal mask.
“I had no idea. The son of a b*tch didn’t say anything to me,” Renner said. “We’re good friends. There’s the Avengers family chat. The original six. He said not a peep. I got online and started blowing up his phone like, ‘What’s going on? You’ve been hiding this from us the whole time?’ It’s exciting news. I’m really, really excited about it.”
More than that, though, the Clint Barton actor appears extremely confident that, at some point in the near future, Marvel will extend an invitation not just to him, but to Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, and Mark Ruffalo, in order to bring the six heroes who started it all back together. Even if one of them is evil now.
“You got Downey back in the mix, you got the Russo Brothers back in the mix. This is a direction where Marvel is going to do well,” Renner continued. “The Avengers movies have always been fan favorites and there’s so many wonderful characters in them. It’s going to be challenging to get everyone together. But I am excited about it. We’ll see. I think we’ll probably be doing it. It’s all brand new. They just made the announcement. They got to start figuring it out.”
Is Marvel really planning to reunite all the founding Avengers in Doomsday and/or Secret Wars?
With all the excitement around Downey’s Doom, fans haven’t given all that much thought to the wider repercussions of his MCU return, but Renner clearly has. Although his comments seem to be more of an “educated wish,” to use Deadpool parlance, rather than anything he’s been told by Marvel that he’s letting slip, he does raise an extremely good point: if Marvel has already achieved the most difficult task, of convincing Downey to return, why not go the whole hog and bring back the rest of the OG six, as well?
After all, Deadpool & Wolverine just cracked the second toughest nut, in getting Evans back on board (albeit as Human Torch not Captain America). Renner, Hemsworth, and Ruffalo have all appeared in Multiverse Saga projects, so they shouldn’t be too hard to talk around. Likewise, ScarJo appears to have fully buried the hatchet with Disney after that Black Wudow lawsuit as she has a producing gig with Marvel in the works.
What if Downey’s Doom assembles his very own Dark Avengers, made up of evil variants of familiar favorites — Evans as HYDRA Cap, for example? Or Ruffalo as Maestro, Hulk’s evil alter ego from the comics? If RDJ could be cajoled back into the Marvel fold with the promise of breaking bad, maybe it’ll work for the rest of them, too. Renner, in any case, seems more than ready to pick up his bow and arrow again.