Iron Man‘s death in Avengers: Endgame devastated Marvel fans everywhere, but everyone knows death isn’t always permanent in the comic book world, so there’s a lot of hope that Robert Downey Jr. will return to the MCU eventually as Tony Stark. The actor himself has been asked this several times since 2019, and he’s always maintained that he’s not looking to armor up again anytime soon. But he’s not ruling out a return for good, either.
In an interview with GQ, the inevitable question came up once again and Downey Jr. had a few words to give in response to being asked if he could come back as Iron Man. The Dolittle star said that he has “alighted, for now. Real world to save.” However, he did add “never say never.” As these brief comments suggest, the actor is keen to live outside the MCU for a while, and he even encouraged his old co-star Tom Holland not to stick around the franchise too long in the same interview.
Clearly, Downey Jr. is happy to have served the 11 years he did in the Marvel universe, appearing in a total of 10 movies as the character across that time, but is feeling ready to stretch his legs in other areas at this juncture. So, what’s he working on instead?
Well, last year the actor revealed that he was partnering up with Warner Bros. to expand his Sherlock Holmes franchise in new ways. For a while, rumor also had it that he was joining the Star Wars universe in The Mandalorian and just this week, a new report pointed to him maybe starring in an upcoming Netflix thriller.
Marvel, meanwhile, isn’t feeling the loss of Iron Man‘s star power, as they have countless projects in the work. In fact, it’s previously been reported that Kevin Feige and company have enough plans to keep them going for another 10-20 years. The good news – apart from the fact that we’ve got a ridiculously huge amount of content ahead of us – is that this gives Robert Downey Jr. plenty of time to change his mind about coming back as Stark.
Published: Feb 26, 2021 07:10 pm