Posted in: Marvel Studios, Movies | Tagged: iron man, marvel, oppenheimer, robert downey jr

Kevin Feige Never Wants to "Magically Undo" Iron Man's Endgame Fate

Kevin Feige says there are no plans to "magically undo" the death of Iron Man, and we "are going to keep that moment and not touch that moment again."

When Avengers: Endgame rolled into theaters in 2019, we all knew there was a good chance that a major character or two wouldn't make it to the end credits. Once the Blip was undone, there had to be something, and no one was shocked to see it was Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark who made the final sacrifice to save the world. The scene where Tony died is a moving one with plenty of characters overwhelmed with that sense of loss, and it felt like Marvel was closing the door on an era. The Marvel Cinematic Universe kicked off with Downey Jr. and his version of Iron Man making it to the big screen, so it stands to reason the first major slate of films would end with his death. So when rumors started flying around that Marvel was planning on undoing Tony, Natasha, or any other big deaths in the lead-up to Endgame, people were annoyed but not surprised. No one stays dead in comics, after all.

No One Is Bringing Iron Man Back From The Dead

However, it sounds like Marvel Studios is trying to avoid that trope. They would always have to move on from actors because the inevitable passage of time is a thing, unlike in comics, where characters can remain forever ageless. So if they were going to undo anything, they would do it soon, and nothing about that sounded like a good idea. It turns out that Marvel Megaboss Kevin Feige agrees. In a lengthy interview done by Vanity Fair with Downey Jr. possibly joining the awards race with his role in Oppenheimer and his career progression, the rumors of bringing back Tony were addressed. Feige has said we have a canon event that won't be touched.

"We are going to keep that moment and not touch that moment again," Feige says. "We all worked very hard for many years to get to that, and we would never want to magically undo it in any way."

It seems that even in the moment when Downey Jr. and everyone else were shooting Tony's death, they knew what they had, and no one wanted to go back to it again. It was an actual one-and-done moment because anything else would ruin it on some level, and Downey Jr. didn't want to do reshoots. Director Joe Russo said, "We'd already said tearful goodbyes on the last day of shooting. Everybody had moved on emotionally. We promised him it would be the last time we made him do it—ever."

Fellow director Anthony Russo added, "That was a difficult thing for him to do, to come back to pick up that line. When he did come back, we were shooting on a stage directly opposite where he auditioned for Tony Stark. So his last line as Tony Stark was shot literally a couple hundred feet from his original audition that got him the role." In many ways, things have come full circle, and the role that helped prove to Hollywood that Downey Jr. was proof that prison reform is a thing that can work has come to an end, and the right people in the right places seem to know that. As for Downey Jr., the awards season awaits as Oppenheimer gains more and more steam, and while, as comic book fans, it'll be sad not to see his energy on screen anymore, you can't mess with a good ending, not when it's so hard to do.

Oppenheimer: Release Date, Summary, Cast List

Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer is an IMAX®-shot epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it. It was released in theaters on July 21, 2023, and will be released on 4K Blu-Ray on November 21, 2023.

The film stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Emily Blunt as his wife, biologist, and botanist Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer. Oscar® winner Matt Damon portrays General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, and Robert Downey, Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Academy Award® nominee Florence Pugh plays psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie plays theoretical physicist Edward Teller, Michael Angarano plays Robert Serber, and Josh Hartnett plays pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence.

Oppenheimer also stars Oscar® winner Rami Malek and reunites Nolan with eight-time Oscar® nominated actor, writer, and filmmaker Kenneth Branagh. The cast includes Dane DeHaan (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets), Dylan Arnold (Halloween franchise), David Krumholtz (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story) and Matthew Modine (The Dark Knight Rises).

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