Kevin Feige Says Marvel Is Not Reviving Tony Stark
Undoubtedly, 2023 was a difficult year for Marvel Studios.
The year started with Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania failing to live up to Marvel’s lofty box office standards and ended with The Marvels bombing.
Along the way, the studio had its share of success (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3., Loki) but also faced a reckoning on streaming (Secret Invasion) that saw the studio rethink how it makes television shows.
Off-screen, Marvel has similarly gone through its share of turmoil. The productions on the studio’s Disney+ series, including Secret Invasion, were reportedly chaotic; Jonathan Majors, who was being set up as the next MCU big bad, was arrested for domestic assault, and longtime studio head Victoria Alonso was unceremoniously fired by Marvel after more than 15 years of success.
Could Marvel Ressurect Former Avengers?
In need of a sure-fire hit, and with the multiversal saga coming to a head, many have floated the idea that Marvel could revive some of the original Avengers, including Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Scarlet Johansson’s Black Widow to assemble the old team together.
While such a ploy might work from a financial perspective (Avengers: Endgame remains the high-water mark of the MCU), it would also undermine the narrative and emotional weight of the stories that have already been told.
Kevin Feige Shuts Down an Iron Man Return
Luckily, in a new profile on Robert Downey Jr. in Vanity Fair, Marvel boss Kevin Feige was adamant that the studio would not bring Iron Man back to the big screen.
“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.”
According to the profile, Tony Stark’s sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame was seen as so final that Downey was reluctant to do reshoots or redo the dialogue.
“We’d already said tearful goodbyes on the last day of shooting. Everybody had moved on emotionally,” Joe Russo says. “We promised him it would be the last time we made him do it—ever.”
“That was a difficult thing for him to do, to come back to pick up that line,” Anthony Russo adds. “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.”
The Right Decision
As exciting as seeing Downey flying high again as Iron Man would be, Feige is right. Any concocted revival of the hero would cheapen one of the great moments in cinematic history. It would not only be a disservice to the Tony Stark character but also an affront to the fans who followed Iron Man as he grew from a self-centered narcissist to a sacrificial hero.
In a year that has seen its share of Marvel mishaps, it’s good to hear that the studio won’t make one more. Let Iron Man rest in peace.