Chris Evans Turned Down a Nomad Movie and "Dozens" of Marvel Pitches Until Robert Downey Jr. Returned
Marvel Studios spent years trying to figure out how to bring Chris Evans back to the MCU after Avengers: Endgame, but it turns out it took more than a good idea to convince him.
According to Evans, Marvel pitched him return after return over the last eight years, including a solo movie centered on Steve Rogers' Nomad persona. As good as those ideas were, none of them felt like the right move.
That finally changed when Evans found out Robert Downey Jr. was coming back. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly after Marvel's Hall H presentation at San Diego Comic-Con 2026,
Evans revealed that Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige and longtime executive Louis D'Esposito wasted little time trying to keep Steve Rogers in the franchise after Endgame wrapped production in 2018.
"When we finished Endgame in 2018, Lou [D’Esposito] and Kevin [Feige] took me to dinner and they were like, 'We’d love to keep doing movies with Steve Rogers as Nomad,'" Evans said.
"And I said, 'Okay, well, what do you got?' They showed me a pitch, and it was a great pitch, but for whatever reason, it just didn't feel right at the time. I kind of wanted to… I was a little precious. I wanted to preserve it. But I just said, 'Please keep pitching.'"
Nomad is an alternate identity Steve Rogers adopted during a memorable run in the 1970s after losing faith in the U.S. government and choosing to become a man without a country.
It's a storyline that many Marvel readers have wanted to see adapted for years, and Anthony Mackie recently hinted that this is the version of Steve Rogers audiences will meet in Avengers: Doomsday.
Even with that great concept on the table, Evans says Marvel kept coming back with fresh ideas over the years, but nothing clicked.
"Over the course of eight years, I probably heard at least a dozen pitches," he continued. "And they were all wonderful. It just never quite felt right. And you do start thinking maybe that's the expiration – whatever it is – maybe it's not right because it's just not right."
Then came the phone call that changed everything. Evans explained that hearing Downey was considering a return instantly made him look at things differently.
"I got a phone call from my team saying there’s a rumor [Robert Downey Jr. is] talking to Marvel, and I was like, 'Uh, oh. What does this mean?' And all of a sudden it felt right. Joe [Russo] gave me the pitch, and Downey was [back]. It just all of a sudden… it was like, 'This is it.'"
Evans and Downey helped build the Infinity Saga together, and bringing both actors back for another massive Marvel event gives Doomsday an emotional weight that a standalone return probably couldn't have matched.
Marvel also packed Hall H with plenty of other surprises. New footage from Avengers: Doomsday teased the complicated history between Doctor Doom and Reed Richards, giving fans another glimpse at what's shaping up to be Marvel's next huge crossover event.
The studio also officially announced that Ryan Gosling will star in a Ghost Rider movie, while David Jonsson has joined the cast of Black Panther 3.
Whether Steve Rogers ultimately stays in the MCU beyond Doomsday and Secret Wars remains to be seen, but it's interesting to learn just how many opportunities Evans passed on before finally deciding the timing was right. Apparently, all it took was the prospect of suiting up alongside Downey one more time.
Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters on December 18, 2026.