If The Marvel Cinematic Universe wobbled in 2023 because of the poorly received ‘Ant-Man 3’ “The Marvels,” and “Secret Invasion” series, many might argue part of that is the loss of its big stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, and Scarlett Johannsson in the post “Avengers: Endgame” universe.
All three of their characters, Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Widow, respectively, either died or were essentially taken off the battlefield (Captain America came back from his time travel exploits as an old man). Several reports and speculations have said Robert Downey Jr. could return to the Marvel universe through the multiverse shenanigans in “Secret Wars.”
While seemingly reluctant to return or be resurrected—it is comics, after all, and the multiverse opens up all kinds of options— Downey Jr., for the first time, signaled that he would be “happily” open to returning to the role. “It’s too integral a part of my DNA. That role chose me. And look, I always say, Never, ever bet against Kevin Feige. It is a losing bet. He’s the house. He will always win,” RDJ told Esquire recently.
The comments, however, were seen as perplexing to “Avengers: Endgame” director Joe and Anthony Russo—the filmmakers repos Noble for killing off Iron Man. Recently asked about Downey’s comments by Games Radar, the Russos sounded confused about how Marvel could pull it off.
“I don’t know how they would do it. I don’t know what the road to that would be [laughs],” Anthony Russo said.
“I mean, we closed that book, so it would be up to them to figure out how to reopen it,” Joe Russo said.
To be fair, these statements feel a little disingenuous. The filmmakers themselves directed a movie, “Avengers: Infinity War,” where one character died—Zoe Saldana’s Gamora— and then they brought another version of her right back in their follow-up movie, ‘Endgame,’ so clearly they know resurrections of some kind are always possible with time and multiverse travel.
Nevertheless, the Russos praised Downey and his recent Oscar-winning turn in “Oppenheimer.”
“His Oscar win was huge,” Joe said. “It’s amazing to live vicariously through Robert, you know, that experience for him is so profound, because of the journey he’s had. I mean, it’s one of the great stories of redemption. And he’s such a lovely person, such a hard-working person. He’s a generational actor, so that level of recognition for him, I think, was validation of his redemption arc.”
As for Iron Man’s return, there is no official word of whether it’ll even happen so that everyone might be getting ahead of themselves. Marvel’s Kevin Feige even said they would never “magically undo” the character’s death last year. “We are going to keep that moment and not touch that moment again,” he said. Still, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any tricks or workarounds to that statement, maybe not undoing the death, but letting an alternate version of the character appear at some point.
Time will tell. In the meantime, the Russo’s next film, “The Electric State” with Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown, is scheduled to arrive sometime in 2024 on Netflix.