Robert Downey Jr. Discusses Possibility of “Iron Man 4”

I’m just throwing it out there, but Iron Man 3 took a little bit of money at the box office. Over $1 billion, in fact. Thing is, that film was the last in Robert Downey Jr.’s Marvel contract. The two parties, Downey Jr. and Marvel/Disney (is that classed as three parties?!), managed to strike a deal for the actor to return… but only for Avengers: Age of Ultron and The Avengers 3, meaning no more Iron Man movies at this stage. RDJ has recently been addressing this to EW.

When asked whether he’d be open to Iron Man 4, RDJ said, “It’s down to Kevin Feige and Ike Perlmutter and Disney to come to us with what the proposal is, and that’s on us to agree or disagree.”

Asked if he’d be happy to see somebody else take over the Tony Stark gig, he added, “Why give up the belt when it feels like you can barely get jabbed?”

Basically, that’s Downey Jr. saying the equivalent of Henry Hill’s infamous “fuck you, pay me” line from Goodfellas. From being a massive risk from Marvel, in terms of initially casting Downey Jr., the tables have now well and truly turned. I’ve talked about it for the longest time now, but Marvel have shot themselves in the foot with just how Robert Downey Jr.-like they’ve let their cinematic Stark become. The comic book Stark isn’t, or at least wasn’t, like his big screen version. Downey Jr. has brought so much of himself to the character that it is going to be a mighty big job to bring anybody else in to play the role. You essentially need to hire somebody to play Robert Downey Jr. playing Tony Stark. Kudos to RDJ for getting himself to that position, and now, with the clamour for more cinematic Stark, it’s down to Marvel and Disney to give the actor the salary that he wants.

For now, at least, Stark will fly again in Avengers: Age of Ultron and The Avengers 3, with Age of Ultron set to drop globally on 1st May, 2015.