Tony & Doom are the same theories need to stop
I am seeing so many people approaching the RDJ as Doom casting as if can only one mean one thing, that he is either a Tony Stark variant or they must be connected somehow. The reality is that no they don't, and we already have multiple casting choices to prove this.
The clearest and most recent example of this is Chris Evans playing both Steve Rogers and Johnny Storm in the mcu. No one is pulling their hair out trying to theorize how they must be the same person or must have a connection somehow, because they accept that one actor can play two different roles within the same overall universe without a connection being required. A thing can just happen for the sake of it, and be what it is without some grand plan being involved.
There have been multiple other examples of this be them large or small characters/actors throughout the fox universe of old and mcu of current. Hell, I don't remember people making the argument that quicksilver #2 and kraven must be the same guy from a different universe that went down a different path right? Or that Johnny storm #2 and killmonger are one in the same guys but on different paths? Or that quicksilver #1 becoming quicksilver #2 but also being regular guy Ralph Boner is some cosmic meddling and they're also the same guy led astray...
Point being, it's fun to theorize and I get why we wish to do this, but it is very highly likely that RDJ as Doom is its own unique and separate thing entirely from what RDJ as Stark was. There will be no connection, no cosmic meddling, no shared threads. They will just be two separate characters played by the same guy is all. In an interview with Kevin feige and Jon favreau, they briefly discuss how the casting of RDJ as Tony Stark back in the day wasn't the plan as they had RDJ in mind to play doctor doom instead but plans changed. This is many years before we ever got to where we are now, so when things aligned as they have they went back to RDJ with the doom plan and he was on board again. It's likely just that simple, and yet we are over thinking every bit of it just because. Knock it off and just try to accept that one person can play multiple different characters without some larger grand scheme being at play.
The clearest and most recent example of this is Chris Evans playing both Steve Rogers and Johnny Storm in the mcu. No one is pulling their hair out trying to theorize how they must be the same person or must have a connection somehow, because they accept that one actor can play two different roles within the same overall universe without a connection being required. A thing can just happen for the sake of it, and be what it is without some grand plan being involved.
There have been multiple other examples of this be them large or small characters/actors throughout the fox universe of old and mcu of current. Hell, I don't remember people making the argument that quicksilver #2 and kraven must be the same guy from a different universe that went down a different path right? Or that Johnny storm #2 and killmonger are one in the same guys but on different paths? Or that quicksilver #1 becoming quicksilver #2 but also being regular guy Ralph Boner is some cosmic meddling and they're also the same guy led astray...
Point being, it's fun to theorize and I get why we wish to do this, but it is very highly likely that RDJ as Doom is its own unique and separate thing entirely from what RDJ as Stark was. There will be no connection, no cosmic meddling, no shared threads. They will just be two separate characters played by the same guy is all. In an interview with Kevin feige and Jon favreau, they briefly discuss how the casting of RDJ as Tony Stark back in the day wasn't the plan as they had RDJ in mind to play doctor doom instead but plans changed. This is many years before we ever got to where we are now, so when things aligned as they have they went back to RDJ with the doom plan and he was on board again. It's likely just that simple, and yet we are over thinking every bit of it just because. Knock it off and just try to accept that one person can play multiple different characters without some larger grand scheme being at play.
Commentaires
Inception
Steve Rogers and Johnny Storm sharing an actor was an accident of the properties not being under the same ownership. Bringing Evans back as Johnny was a joke, riffing on that coincidence. There was an actual story reason to bring in Evans as someone other than Steve, even if that reason was basically an extended silly meta sight gag.
I'm honestly already a bit turned off that they're probably bringing in some kind of Stark connection with Doom, rather than just making him Victor Von Doom. But bringing in RDJ and not making that shared actor an important part of the story would be so, so, so much worse.
Skeptical
Cap is a Johnny Storm variant. Obviously.
No, it hasn't happened one single time. Never in the entire history of Marvel Movies did one studio decide to cast the same actor in 2 different major roles.
The exemples you brought up are all cases of different movie studios independent from each other choosing the same actor for their movie. It's only post-merger that Marvel Studios decided to canonise it all by referencing previous casting decisions.
In Wandavision, Ralph Bonher isn't a totally unrelated character that happens to be played by the same guy, it's literally a direct reference. Evan Peters plays Quicksilver in the show until the reveal, and is even recognized as such by Wanda despite her never seeing the man in her life and looking nothing like her brother. The same Wanda who's known to meddle with the multiverse. Not everything has to be spoonfed to the viewer, at worst it's a clear reference to the original casting, at best (and likeliest) it's a plot device wherein Agatha purposefully chose a man that looks like Wanda's brother in another universe knowing that Wanda's a nexus being and will subconsciously recognize him.
When it comes to Johnny Storm, again, Fox and Marvel Studios were two completely distinct companies at the time that the casting decisions were made. While you're right in saying that Chris Evans' Johnny Storm and Chris Evans' Captain America don't have multiversal ties, they've also never been written as part of the same narrative thread. Deadpool & Wolverine had a whole meta-story about the foxverse(s) joining the MCU, and part of that story involved Chris Evans showing up as Johnny Storm, and Deadpool even thinking he was captain america at first. It's a meta, 4th wall breaking movie that used real-life casting decisions as part of a plot device.
RDJ's Doom having absolutely no ties to Stark whatsoever would be the very first ever time in Marvel Movies that the same studio casts the same actor in 2 unrelated major roles within the same narrative thread. Plus, the in-universe explanation for Doom looking EXACTLY like Stark being "lol just a coincidence i guess" would be, by far, the single laziest and most disappointing way to handle the double casting
Your phrasing of recasting of a "major" character is irrelevant. If the audience recognizes an actor as portraying two different characters within the series, major or minor, there will inevitably be some that ask questions or get confused by it. Low tier example is actress Laura Haddock being a small appearance in captain America the first avenger, but then also playing Meredith Quill twice in two guardians movies. It may not be a person most people noticed, but they also doesn't mean anyone should have started theorizing her and cap made sweet love and now there's a super soldier baby out there that is somehow related to starlord because she hulk confirmed cap lost his virginity in ww2.... See where I'm going here? It would be easy to start theorizing all sorts of things from those bits of info but I won't because it isn't necessary until it is.
Even on your Ralph Boehner theory, you imply that Wanda is a nexus being which she isn't, and no one has claimed she was, but somehow you have theorized as such among other puzzle pieces you're putting together. That's my whole point, that it's easy for us to connect dots whether there is real weight there or just fun cameos or meta references. Something can be a simple reference for the fans and no one will take anything more from it, and that is what I'm wanting people to do with doom as well. Calm down on theorizing and just let things happen before trying to tie it altogether when it doesn't need to be.
To many people, the choice to just bring him in with no character recognizing him, and Doom not being aware of that, _and_ there not being a reason Victor Von Doom looks like Tony, would be terrible.
But the Russos said he _is_ Victor.
Not that he was Tony and then turned bad.
Victor.
So how to reconcile these two ideas?
This results in the fact that we need to be open to the possibility of Tony having been a Doom variant.
"What? No, that would ruin Tony!"
No it wouldn't.
It would enhance Tony to be someone who had parents and friends to lead him in a different path.
"What friends? He became Iron man on his own."
Not true. Yinsen was his friend, and his death shook Tony. Yinsen represented the oppressed people of the world to Tony.
That was what made him become Iron Man.
Then he met the Avengers, and learned to work with others.
And yes, he had daddy issues, but he came around in Iron Man 2 when he found that recording. That gave him encouragement that he meant something to Dad. And led him to the forgiveness he felt in Endgame.
It would become a story of Nature vs Nurture.
Friends being the answer is a great message.