Robert Downey Jr wants to end his Iron Man run ‘before it’s embarrassing’
Could the MCU survive without its leading man?
Though the expansion of the Marvel Universe is showing no signs of slowing down, it may eventually have to do so without its biggest star: Robert Downey Jr has suggested that there is a time limit on his run as billionaire superhero Tony Stark.
Speaking to News Corp Australia, Downey said, “I just never want to blow it for the last six or seven (MCU movies) I have done by dropping the ball because I decided to go do it one more time. I just want to hang up my jersey before it’s embarrassing.”
The 52-year-old features in the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming, next year’s Avengers Infinity War and is contracted for one further Avengers movie. As there are no current plans in place for a fourth Iron Man instalment, that may be that, unless the right opportunity arises.
“It’s this cyclical thing,” he says. “I could have said when the first Avengers came out, ‘It’s never going to get any better than that. Everybody stop’. But to me it’s always about people and opportunities, like the (Avengers directors Anthony and Joe) Russos, who I adore.”
The star was attracted to Spider-Man: Homecoming by the prospect of working with director Joe Watts, who had helmed his low-budget police comedy Cop Car in 2015.
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“I felt like we were literally back in the writer’s room on the first Iron Man,” Downey said of the new Spidey flick. “So there was a real sense of a homecoming toward this — not experimental, because there is so much more data now and the process is so much more streamlined — but I didn’t feel like I was being asked to just fit in somewhere. They wanted us to bring our own little thing.”
Given that the studio seems to be selling the third Spider-Man reboot in 15 years on its Iron Man cameo, they may want to get to work on getting some great behind-the-scene talent on board for future films to keep their man interested.
