Robert Downey Jr. Changed Marvel Movies With ‘Iron Man’ — and Now He Could Do It Again
variety.comDaniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic It’s hard to think of an actor managing his career after leaving a franchise better than has Robert Downey Jr.
And that makes his announced return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe — in which he’ll be playing the villainous character Dr.
Doom in forthcoming “Avengers” sequels, as announced this weekend — come as a surprise. Downey’s “Iron Man” kicked off of the MCU in 2008, and his character Tony Stark’s death, in 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame,” was a climax of sorts. “Endgame” represented a culmination of all Marvel storytelling to that point: Downey’s definitive departure meant that this particular set of stories, in which wisecracking defense contractor sat at the emotional center, was done. (Downey seemed so fully out that, as he announced his return on Instagram, no less than his onscreen romantic co-lead Gwyneth Paltrow commented “I don’t get it, are you a baddie now?”) What immediately followed his departure was a major hiccup, with his film “Dolittle” bombing critically and commercially in early 2020.
It was an attempted franchise-starter, and a cynical one: Downey has said since that he was “a little too excited about the deal, and not quite excited enough about the merits of the execution,” and that, after the film, “we had this reset of priorities.” This reset led both to his taking a supporting role in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” for which he won an Oscar earlier this year, and his executive-producing and appearing in the fairly audacious, risky HBO literary adaptation “The Sympathizer,” for which he is currently an Emmy nominee and frontrunner.
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