In a behind-the-scenes report on Marvel Studios final month, sources instructed that the panicked MCU overlords have been contemplating resurrecting characters like Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.). It’s not precisely a shock that Marvel would wish to return to the fundamentals: Tony Stark, specifically, was the keystone of the franchise, and Downey was its face. But bringing Iron Man again would require Downey to agree, and as he enters the Oscars dialog (for Oppenheimer) in his post-MCU chapter, why would he even wish to?
Anyway, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige says a Tony Stark return is a no-go. “We are going to maintain that second and never contact that second once more,” he says in a brand new profile of Downey for Vanity Fair. “We all labored very onerous for a few years to get to that, and we might by no means wish to magically undo it in any means.”
Whether this determination got here from Feige’s real constancy to the story or as a result of Downey would by no means conform to it, we might by no means know. We do know that Downey didn’t even actually wish to come again to do reshoots on his remaining scene for Avengers: Endgame. “We’d already stated tearful goodbyes on the final day of taking pictures. Everybody had moved on emotionally,” director Joe Russo recalled. “We promised him it might be the final time we made him do it—ever.”
“That was a troublesome factor for him to do, to come back again to choose up that line,” Anthony Russo added. “When he did come again, we have been taking pictures on a stage straight reverse the place he auditioned for Tony Stark. So his final line as Tony Stark was shot actually a pair hundred ft from his unique audition that bought him the position.”
And sure, the godfather of the MCU did must audition for the half again within the day. “It purely got here all the way down to the Marvel board being nervous at placing all of their chips of their future movies on any individual who famously had these authorized troubles up to now,” Feige shared. He defined that he finally got here up with the concept to have Downey display screen take a look at to win over the board, as a result of he “wasn’t excellent—and I’m nonetheless not nice—at taking no for a solution.” Unfortunately for him, if the query is, “Hey, Robert Downey Jr., will you reprise the position of Tony Stark?” It looks like he’s going to must stay with a “no.”
