AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY Director Wants to “Surprise Audiences” With Unexpected Character Changes

The MCU has spent nearly two decades building characters fans are fiercely attached to, but Anthony Russo knows that simply giving audiences more of what they already love isn’t enough.

WithAvengers: Doomsday, he and his brother Joe Russo are trying to respect everything that came before while still taking some big swings. That becomes especially interesting whenRobert Downey Jr. is suddenly playing Doctor Doom.

During a Q&A following Avengers: Endgame Encore at the 92nd Street Y in New York, Russo talked about the challenge of returning to the MCU and figuring out how far they can push these familiar characters without losing what made audiences care about them in the first place.

"It's a very difficult part of the process because I mean, we basically just have to use our own meters because we love the characters, we love the history, we love them in the same way that many fans do.

"But the one thing we always like to remind people of, you know, fandom does not speak with a single voice. There's a wide variety of opinion in terms of who responds to which characters and which versions of which characters people respond to, it's a very complex relationship that people have with the characters."

That’s an important point when dealing with something as massive as the MCU. Every character has fans with their own ideas about who that hero or villain should be, and trying to satisfy every expectation would be impossible.

Russo said the filmmakers have "a lot of respect for the storytelling journey that these characters have had up to this point," but respecting that history doesn’t mean keeping everyone frozen in place.

"That's part of their magic, a big part of their magic. But at the same time, we need to surprise ourselves in terms of who those characters are, where they can go, what they can do, what can happen, and in doing that, we hopefully surprise audiences as well."

Of course, the biggest example sitting right in front of them is Robert Downey Jr. as Victor Von Doom. Downey spent years as Tony Stark before Iron Man sacrificed himself to defeat Thanos in Avengers: Endgame.

It was a powerful conclusion for the character and one of the defining moments of the MCU. Now the Russos are bringing Downey back as Doctor Doom, potentially one of the biggest villains Marvel Studios has put on screen.

That creates an interesting storytelling challenge. Audiences have an enormous amount of history attached to Downey's face, voice, and presence in these movies, and Doomsday has to convince them they're looking at Victor Von Doom rather than Tony Stark wearing a different costume.

In regard to that, Russo said: "It is figuring out that balance of how do you challenge yourself, i.e. casting Robert Downey as Victor Von Doom, and then and how do you sort of stay faithful to the very thoughtful and wonderfully effective storytelling road that's been traveled up until this point.”

Whatever Marvel has planned, Avengers: Doomsday isn't interested in simply replaying the MCU's greatest hits. The Russos want to respect the history fans have with these characters while finding ways to take them somewhere audiences aren't expecting.

With Downey stepping into the role of Doctor Doom, they've already made one massive change. Now we get to see what other surprises Avengers: Doomsday has waiting for us.