Back when Robert Downey Jr. was playing hardball with Marvel Studios during his first round of contract renegotiations once his original deal expired after The Avengers, Kevin Feige went public to issue a thinly-veiled ultimatum. Speaking in late 2012, the architect of the shared cinematic universe compared Iron Man to James Bond when he said: “I hope Downey makes a lot of movies for us as Stark. If and when he doesn’t, and I’m still here making these movies, we don’t take him to Afghanistan and have him wounded again. I think we James Bond it.”
Naturally, both sides came to several more agreements that turned RDJ into one of the highest-paid actors on the face of the planet, and he’s estimated to have earned upwards of $150 million from just Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame alone. Despite gracefully bowing out at the conclusion of the Infinity Saga, though, barely a week goes by without the 56 year-old being linked with a comeback in either a feature film or Disney Plus exclusive as an alternate universe version of Tony, a flashback or the voice of an artificial intelligence.
However, a new rumor now claims that Marvel could be going one step further by physically recasting the role, albeit with a catch. As per the report, the hunt is on for an actor to portray a young Tony Stark for unspecified reasons in an unknown film or television series. Of course, we already saw a teenage spin on the future Iron Man in Captain America: Civil War, where he was played by a de-aged Downey Jr., but this would obviously be a different situation.
There’s no additional information given as to why Marvel would need a young Tony, what project they require him for or how it all ties into the mythology, so it’s best to take this one with a helping of salt for now. Knowing how MCU fans can often be, though, if there was even something as trivial as a flashback to the exact moment of Stark’s birth, people would still complain that Downey Jr. wasn’t involved.
