Following a recent spike in rumors and speculation regarding the possibility that the franchise may pull such a desperate move as a ‘last resort’ with which to save its continually plummeting reputation, Robert Downey Jr. has seemingly confirmed that he is in fact gearing up to grace the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a further appearance as his iconic incarnation of Iron Man.
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The actor first let slip this hint as to his red-and-gold-clad future during an appearance on the January 10th episode of his friend and fellow actor Rob Lowe’s eponymous Literally! With Rob Lowe podcast.
Therein, roughly 15 minutes into their time together, Downey Jr. finds himself receiving an apparently important phone call, at which point he asks his host, “I’m sorry, I should take this.”
Taking note of the urgency with which his guest deferred to the call, Lowe responded by playfully pressing, “Is that some Marvel s–t? Are you going to break some stories here?”.
In turn, the Oppenheimer star sighed, “Uh…not just yet.”
His mind now turned to the topic of Downey Jr.’s potential return to Marvel, Lowe then joked, “You know what I say. That phone is going to ring, baby, and I want to be on that call.”
“I want to be negotiating for you.” he continued. “I know what your deal is. Here’s what you do. You go, ‘I’ll come back and I’ll play Tony Stark for you guys since you f–ed everything up. But I want a gazillion dollars, and I actually know what that number should be, and I want first dollar gross of every ensuing movie.'”
“That sounds quite hostile!” his guest laughed in response, at which point he then hard-pivoted the conversation away from the MCU and towards a discussion of Lowe’s own history as “an excellent negotiator”.
RELATED RUMOR: Iron Man Actor Robert Downey Jr. Has Agreed To Return To The Marvel Cinematic Universe
Word that Marvel may be looking to Downey Jr.’s universally beloved take on the Armored Avenger to reverse the post-Avengers: Endgame damage done to their franchise was first in November 2023 courtesy of Variety Executive Editor Film & Media Taitana Siegel’s now famous ‘Crisis at Marvel‘ exposé.
Therein relaying information provided to her by her own alleged insider sources, Siegel reported that in light of the MCU’s reputation having hit rock bottom with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, “there have been talks to bring back the original gang for an ‘Avengers’ movie,” which she directly confirmed “would include reviving Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man.”
To this end, Siegel clarified that, at least as far as she knew, “the studio hasn’t yet committed to the idea,” particularly due to the fact that getting the actor back on board “wouldn’t come cheap.”
Support would subsequently be given to Siegel’s claims when, later that same day, noted scooper MyTimeToShineHello took to their personal Twitter account and, in ostensibly responding to her report, declared “RDJ already agreed to come back”.
And while these rumors have drawn an official response from Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige himself, it notably was not one of outright denial.
Asked about the possibility of Downey Jr.’s return for a Vanity Fair profile on the actor, Feige asserted, “We are going to keep that moment and not touch that moment again.
“We all worked very hard for many years to get to that,” he added, “and we would never want to magically undo it in any way.”
However, as keen readers may have already noted, at no point during his answer does Feige say anything regarding the return of the actor himself.
Rather, his answer instead focuses on the fact that they will leave “that moment” – otherwise known as Tony Stark’s self-sacrificial death against Thanos and his forces at the end of Endgame – untouched.
Taking this dodge with the fact that the franchise has begun to lean heavily on the concept of Multiversal variants to keep itself afloat, it’s not hard to read between the lines and infer that should Marvel Studios actually bring Downey Jr. back, it will not be as the Tony Stark of Earth-199999, but as a ‘different version’ all together – possibly even a ‘superior’ one.
