Robert Downey Jr. won’t be returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Tony Stark
By Lisa Respers France, CNN
(CNN) — Marvel fans shouldn’t be checking for Robert Downey Jr. to reprise his role as Tony Stark/Iron Man in the Marvel universe.
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair that despite reports otherwise, there are no plans to resurrect the character after Downey Jr.’s last appearance in 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame.”
“We are going to keep that moment and not touch that moment again,” Feige said. “We all worked very hard for many years to get to that, and we would never want to magically undo it in any way.”
Downey Jr. was hesitant to even do reshoots for “Endgame,” according to the film’s co-director Joe Russo.
“We’d already said tearful goodbyes on the last day of shooting. Everybody had moved on emotionally,” Russo told publication. “We promised him it would be the last time we made him do it — ever.”
His brother Anthony Russo, who co-directed “Endgame,” added, “That was a difficult thing for him to do, to come back to pick up that line.”
“When he (Downey Jr.) did come back, we were shooting on a stage directly opposite where he auditioned for Tony Stark,” Anthony Russo said. “So his last line as Tony Stark was shot literally a couple hundred feet from his original audition that got him the role.”
According to Feige, he had to advocate for Downey Jr. to win the role of Stark in the Marvel franchise because of his past struggles with substance abuse that led to him serving 15 months in prison.
“It purely came down to the Marvel board being nervous at putting all of their chips in their future films on somebody who famously had those legal troubles in the past,” Feige said. “I wasn’t very good—and I’m still not great—at taking no for an answer. But I also don’t pound my chest to try to get my way. I try to figure out ways to make it as clear to other people why we should head in a direction. And that’s when the idea of a screen test came up.”
Downey Jr.’s wife, producer Susan Downey, said her husband has turned down roles similar to Stark over the years. And in 2018, Downey Jr. told the Vanity Fair writer Anthony Breznican that despite attempts to compare him to the character, he’s his own man.
“I ain’t him, I’ll tell you that flat out,” Downey Jr. said at the time.
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