Robert Downey Jr. and Pedro Pascal Swap Marvel Roles for Halloween

Robert Downey Jr. and Pedro Pascal turned their opposing roles in Avengers: Doomsday into a coordinated Halloween joke. In a video posted October 31, the actors swapped characters: Downey dressed as Pascal’s stretchy scientist Reed Richards, while Pascal stepped into Downey’s armored Doctor Doom look.

Downey kept the caption compact, naming the characters by their first names before announcing the costume switch. The setup landed because the two actors are positioned on different sides of Marvel’s next large ensemble movie, but appeared together to playfully reverse that dynamic.

A superhero switch built for fans

The costumes were recognizable without trying to reproduce every detail of the movie designs. Downey wore a blue Fantastic Four-style suit and gray-streaked hair associated with Mister Fantastic. Pascal adopted Doom’s green hood, metallic mask and cape, turning the clip into a visual role-reversal rather than a standard cast promotion.

The pairing also gave fans a lighter preview of an on-screen conflict expected to carry much higher stakes. Avengers: Doomsday brings Pascal back as Reed Richards after The Fantastic Four: First Steps, alongside Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the rest of the team. Downey, meanwhile, leads the threat as Victor von Doom.

The countdown to Doomsday

The film is scheduled to open in theaters on December 18, placing the Halloween post inside the final stretch of its promotional countdown. Its expansive cast also includes returning figures from the Avengers, Wakanda and the X-Men corners of the Marvel universe.

Rather than revealing footage or plot details, the video relied on the familiarity of the two characters and the surprise of seeing each star inhabit the other’s silhouette. It was a small promotional beat, but one that made the movie’s hero-versus-villain setup immediately legible—and gave Downey and Pascal room to laugh at their own casting.