In a multiverse-melting shock, Marvel Studios revealed that its most bankable star will probably be popping out of MCU retirement for a pair of Avengers motion pictures.

Robert Downey Jr. is ready to return to the movie franchise as basic Improbable 4 villain Physician Doom for the newly titled Avengers: Doomsday, due out in Could 2026, and Avengers: Secret Wars, bowing in Could 2027. Kevin Feige additionally formally confirmed the Russo bros. will direct these subsequent two Avengers movies.

Downey turned one of many greatest film stars on the earth after launching the Marvel Cinematic Universe with 2008’s Iron Man. His work helped propel the MCU to grow to be the best grossing movie franchise of all time — and he was handsomely rewarded, incomes $50 million paydays within the course of. Downey retired from the function of Tony Stark/Iron Man with 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, during which his character died saving the universe. It’s been a problem for Marvel to discover a protagonist to exchange the big gap left by Downey, giving Saturday’s announcement all of the extra that means.

“New masks, similar process,” Downey instructed the viewers from the stage.

Downey was revealed in an nearly non secular ceremony as about two dozen olive-robed males with metallic, Physician Doom-like masks walked on stage, becoming a member of Feige and the Russo Bros. “If we’re going to convey Victor Von Doom to the display screen — he is among the extra complicated characters in all of comics … that is probably one of many extra entertaining characters in all of fiction,” mentioned Joe Russo. “If we’re going to do that … then we’re going to want the best actor on the earth.”

The viewers, already completely primed over the earlier hour of Marvel Corridor H frenzy, was on the sting of their seats. He continued, “As proof of the unimaginable prospects of the Marvel Universe, we provide the one one who may play Victor von Doom…”

Then a masked man in a inexperienced go well with stepped ahead and unmasked himself: Downey, proud, prepared for the adulation. Which was instantaneous, as all 6,500-plus folks within the viewers misplaced what was left of their minds.

Moments earlier, the Russos have been launched as the administrators of those new Avengers movies, which they are going to produce in addition to direct.

“That four-movie run was unbelievable,” mentioned Anthony Russo, after a montage of their movies sizzled on display screen. “And it left us actually spent, with all of our feelings on the ground. Within the time since, by means of a really particular story, Joe and I’ve come to probably see a street ahead with you all.” Joe Russo picked up the place his brother left off, including, “It’s the largest story that Marvel Comics ever instructed, it’s the primary comedian e book run that I learn as a child that made me fall in love with comics. It’s the rationale why Ant and I are standing up right here. And I feel you all of the know the title of it.” Avengers: Secret Wars title flashed on the large display screen.

Stephen McFeely, who co-wrote the Russos’ Marvel motion pictures with Christopher Markus, will write the brand new Avengers motion pictures. The Russos have lengthy maintained that Secret Wars — which was the title of a pair of Nineteen Eighties occasion comics for Marvel — was their dream challenge. In Secret Wars, an omnipotent being often called The Beyonder transported Marvel’s heroes and villains to a planet referred to as Battle World, the place they have been pressured to struggle.

The information marks a artistic makeover for the newly titled Avengers: Doomsday, which is able to come earlier than Secret Wars and function Avengers 5.. Feige introduced a unique Avengers 5 two years in the past in Corridor H as Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. The movie would have starred Jonathan Majors because the time-traveling villain Kang, nonetheless in December, a New York jury discovered Majors responsible of harassment and assault of a former girlfriend, which induced Marvel to chop ties with the actor, and necessitated an overhaul of the movie.

The transfer comes amid the record-setting opening weekend for Deadpool & Wolverine, which is able to simply land the top-opening of all time for an R-rated characteristic, and which has injected a renewed sense of power to the MCU.

The Russo Bros.’ return can also be notable. That they had a record-breaking run with Avengers: Endgame (2019), which for a time topped Avatar as the largest film of all time, and so they additionally directed Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014), Captain America: Civil Battle (2016) and Avengers: Infinity Battle (2018). Within the years since, they’ve helmed streaming options corresponding to Cherry and The Grey Man, however are greatest liked amongst audiences for his or her Marvel work.

The Avengers franchise is the crown jewel for Marvel Studios, which constructed its status by reaching what many thought was unimaginable when it mixed the heroes of Iron Man, Captain America and Thor motion pictures for a team-up that turned a genre-defining hit in 2012.

Downey is coming off a profession excessive together with his first Oscar win earlier this 12 months for his function as Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. The actor additionally lately earned an Emmy nomination for HBO’s The Sympathizer.