Robert Downey Jr. appeared in Rob Lowe “Literally!” Podcast He said his performance as Tony Stark/Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe represented some of the best acting of his career, but “he kind of went unnoticed because of the genre.” The Oscar nominee has played the character for 11 years, exiting the MCU in 2019's “Avengers: Endgame.”
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said last month that he wouldn't ask Downey Jr. to return to the MCU to preserve Tony Stark's emotional ending (“We've all worked so hard for so many years to get to that, and we would never want to magically undo it in any way,” but that It hasn't stopped rumors from spreading that Marvel desperately wants Iron Man back to help restore the MCU to its glory days. The film was a huge success at the box office last year with flops like “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “The Marvels,” the latter of which The lowest-grossing MCU movie of all time.
Downey Jr.'s phone started ringing while recording “Literally!” podcast, prompting Lowe to say: “Is this some Marvel bullshit? Are you going to break some stories here?”
“Not yet,” Downey Jr. replied.
“You know what I'm saying. This phone's going to ring, honey, and I want to be on that call. “I want to negotiate on your behalf,” Lowe added about Downey Jr.'s potential offer to return to Marvel. “I know what your deal is. Here's what you do. Go, “I'm going to come back and play Tony Stark for you guys again since you messed everything up.” But I want a gazillion dollars. I know what that number should be, and I want the first gross dollar for every subsequent movie. This is what I will do.”
Downey Jr. laughed outside Lowe's Stadium and said, “That sounds very aggressive!”
After Downey Jr.'s run in the Marvel universe ended, he took over the $175 million family hit “Dolittle.” It was an infamous box office flop when it opened in January 2020 just before the Covid pandemic and received some of the worst reviews of the actor's career. He also produced the film with his wife, Susan Downey, under the Downey Productions banner. Downey Jr. told Lowe that the movie “didn't work,” but he's humbled that it knocked him down a bit after Marvel.
“I felt very exposed after being in the Marvel cocoon where I think I did some of the best work I'll ever do, but it kind of went unnoticed because of that,” Downey Jr. said. “[I] I did myself a favor, because the rug was definitively pulled out from under me, and all the things I had been leaning on, as opposed to my understanding of trust and security, had evaporated. It made me teachable.”
Downey Jr. is currently campaigning for the Oscars for Christopher Nolan's “Oppenheimer,” for which he won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. He is widely expected to receive an Academy Award nomination for his performance.
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