Robert Downey Jr. Isn’t Afraid of AI—He’s Ready to Sue Any Exec Who Misuses It

AI is not keeping Robert Downey Jr. up at night. But try to turn his face or voice into a quick cash machine without asking, and he is more than ready to turn on the lawyers. Meanwhile, James Cameron is kicking the tires on AI to make VFX move faster, and Scarlett Johansson continues to be the industry’s loudest warning siren on voice cloning. Here is where all of that collides right now.

RDJ on AI: calm, cautious, and very litigious if you cross a line

On Kara Swisher’s podcast last year, Robert Downey Jr. basically said he does not have the bandwidth to obsess over AI doom, but he is not naive about where this can go. He trusts a tiny circle of Marvel decision-makers to treat Tony Stark’s legacy responsibly, and he is not expecting them to puppet his digital soul now or later.

He also joked that whoever runs Hollywood in a few decades should not get cute with his likeness. Swisher pointed out he might not be around then; Downey fired back that his lawyers will be. The host even likened the whole idea to the business around Elvis’s image after death. The energy was joking, the intent felt very real.

"I intend to sue all future executives just on spec."

As for investing in AI, Downey says he looks past the hype and the paycheck. He is interested in who is building the thing, whether their ethics are intact, why they are deploying it, if their oversight is solid, and whether he can actually contribute something. Translation: he is AI-curious, not AI-evangelical.

What he is supposedly doing next on the Marvel front

The current rumor mill has him stepping back into the MCU as Doctor Doom. One project being talked about is Avengers: Doomsday, listed for December 18, 2026, with Avengers: Secret Wars following on December 17, 2027. There is also The Fantastic Four: First Steps, said to feature him as Victor Von Doom in 2025, per IMDb. Note the phrasing here: these are dates and titles making the rounds, not official pronouncements from Marvel.

Johansson vs AI: the voice-clone flashpoint

Scarlett Johansson put the industry on blast in May 2024 when OpenAI rolled out a voice for its 'Sky' assistant that sounded, in her words, alarmingly like hers after she had already declined to license her voice. She said she was shocked and angry that it fooled friends and even news outlets. After her lawyers got involved, OpenAI dropped that voice. It was a very public line in the sand.

That fight sits alongside other lawsuits from actors and voice artists like Paul Lehrman and Linnea Sage, who say startups such as Lovo cloned their voices without permission, violating New York’s Civil Rights Law and the U.S. Copyright Act. SAG-AFTRA has been pushing for federal protections for likenesses and voices because the tech is now good enough to mimic people convincingly, and that means lost jobs, damaged reputations, and unauthorized performances. Lawyers see these cases as the ones that will clarify how far existing laws actually go when AI gets involved.

James Cameron wants AI to speed up the work, not replace it

James Cameron, who spent 2023 warning about AI’s darker potential, is now trying to fold it into the workflow without kicking artists to the curb. After joining Stability AI’s board, he told the Boz to the Future podcast that his goal is to plug AI into VFX so shots finish faster and teams can move to the next sequence sooner. The aim is not layoffs; it is throughput. He still doubts an AI can write something that truly moves an audience, but he is willing to revisit that suspicion if, say, 20 years from now an algorithm actually wins Best Screenplay.

• RDJ trusts Marvel’s small leadership group not to mishandle Tony Stark, but he is clear he will protect his image legally if needed.
• He approaches AI investments by vetting the people, purpose, and oversight first, not the hype.
• Rumor watch: Avengers: Doomsday (Dec 18, 2026) and Avengers: Secret Wars (Dec 17, 2027) are being talked about as his MCU return, with The Fantastic Four: First Steps in 2025 featuring him as Victor Von Doom, per IMDb.
• Scarlett Johansson pushed OpenAI to scrap its 'Sky' voice after it sounded too much like her; other actors have sued companies like Lovo over alleged voice cloning under NY Civil Rights Law and the U.S. Copyright Act.
• SAG-AFTRA is pressing for federal guardrails to protect performers’ likenesses and voices as AI tools get better at imitation.
• James Cameron, now on Stability AI’s board, wants AI to speed up VFX production cycles without cutting teams, and he remains skeptical that AI can write emotionally resonant stories anytime soon.

The bigger picture

Two things can be true at once: AI can be a useful creative tool, and it can also get abused in ways that steamroll the people who actually create. Downey is not scared of it, Johansson is not letting it slide, and Cameron wants to aim it at the boring parts of the process so artists can do cooler stuff. The real fight is over who controls the tech and what rules exist when someone tries to copy a human being for profit.

Your turn: would you be cool with an AI performance stepping in for your favorite actor, or does that cross the line where the magic disappears?