Fantastic Four director says Robert Downey Jr's Doctor Doom is being saved for Avengers: Doomsday - "Doom's a great character, but he takes up a lot of air"

Fantastic Four Matt Shakman is hedging fan expectations about whether Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom, the Fantastic Four's most iconic enemy, will appear in the upcoming FF film. And if Shakman's latest remarks to Entertainment Weekly are to be believed, there will be a distinct lack of Doom in his big MCU film.

"Doom's a great character, but he takes up a lot of air," Shakman states in the interview. "Other film adaptations have done both an origin story and Doom. We're doing neither, and that allows us to look at them from a fresh perspective."

I'll be honest, Doctor Doom is my absolute favorite comic character (and today, April 10, 2025, is the 63rd anniversary of his 1962 debut in Fantastic Four #5), so it's a bit disappointing that he seemingly won't be in the Fantastic Four's big MCU debut. Doom is kind of the fifth Beatle for the FF, so to speak, so even with the promise of the FF showing up to take on Doom in Avengers: Doomsday, I'm still hoping for a sneaky cameo in the Fantastic Four movie, even if only in a stinger scene.

As for not being an origin story, the footage we've seen makes it look like we'll at least get some flashbacks showing how the Fantastic Four got their powers, but the recent reveal that Sue Storm is pregnant (presumably with Franklin Richards) definitely sets the film's overall timeline well into their career as heroes.

Fantastic Four stars Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm-Richards/Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, and Eben Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps arrives in theaters on July 25 to kick off Marvel Phase 6. In the meantime, get up to speed with our guide to all the other upcoming superhero movies still to come from both Marvel and DC.