Despite some previous shady comments, Robert Downey Jr. says he'd be more than happy to return to Marvel and put on the Iron Man suit once more.
"Happily. It’s too integral a part of my DNA. That role chose me," Downey told Esquire when asked if he'd ever return. "And look, I always say, never, ever bet against Kevin Feige. It is a losing bet. He’s the house. He will always win.”
The actor won his first Oscar for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, a historical drama based on the life of American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Downey played Lewis Strauss, former Acting United States Secretary of Commerce and an original member of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. In the film, Strauss is one of Oppenheimer's biggest enemies, and is one of the men that ultimately brought about the scientist's downfall (before he's given his own dose of karma).
Downey's latest Marvel comment comes as a surprise, with some thinking he took shade at the MCU during his BAFTA Win for Best Supporting Actor. "I played a guy named Tony in the MCU for about 12 years," he told the audience. "Recently, Christopher Nolan] suggested I attempt an understated approach as a last-ditch effort to perhaps resurrect my dwindling credibility."
Feige says Marvel has no existing plans to resurrect Iron Man. "We are going to keep that moment and not touch that moment again,” Feige previously said of Tony Stark's Death in Avengers: Endgame (H/T Deadline). “We all worked very hard for many years to get to that, and we would never want to magically undo it in any way.”
Either way, we'd be more than happy to see Downey return to the MCU (even if he comes to Peter Parker in a vision or something similarly silly). The actor's next project is The Sympathizer, an espionage thriller based on the novel of the same name, in which he plays several different antagonists who steer our spy hero in the wrong direction.
Oppenheimer is streaming now Peacock. The Sympathizer is out April 14. For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies in 2024 and beyond.
