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Marvel Studios (and its owner, The Walt Disney Company) has had a bad couple of years. The past few Marvel movies did not fare well at the box office. In fact, by some estimates, The Marvels (2023) may be one of the top 10 biggest flops of all time.
Credit: Marvel
Marvel Studios
But not that long ago, the studio produced blockbuster after blockbuster, many grossing over $1 billion globally. Much of Marvel’s success and excitement seems to have faded after Avengers: Endgame (2019).
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It appears that casual fans lost interest as many characters’ storylines concluded such as Captain America and Black Widow. Some heroes retired, others died, and the Infinity War storyline involving Thanos ended.
Credit: Disney/Marvel
But before the superheroes and celebrities who played them were popular household names, the only superheroes people could name were Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man.
Iron Man
All of that changed in 2008 with Robert Downey Jr. as the comic book character Tony Stark in the Iron Man movie. The movie was a major success, spawning the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) that followed.
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Robert Downey Jr. played Tony Star/Iron Man in nine MCU films (more if you count cameos and end credit scenes).
Credit: Marvel
Today, he remains one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, especially after recently taking home a Golden Globe for his role in Oppenheimer (2023).
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But in 2008, actor and director Jon Favreau pushed Robert Downey Jr. to don the Iron Man suit. At the time, Downey was a controversial casting choice.
Credit: D23
Robert Downey Jr. recently participated in The Hollywood Reporter‘s actors’ roundtable with Colman Domingo, Mark Ruffalo, Jeffrey Wright, and Andrew Scott. Conversations about the original Iron Man (2008) film came up during this.
Related: Interview With Iron Man
“We were meant to do this thing,” said Downey Jr. “Also, there was no real certainty that this was even going to take off. Iron Man was a second-tier hero.”
Credit: Marvel
He continued, “They [Marvel] let the lunatics run the asylum for a little while, so it was completely an indie approach to a genre movie to begin with.”
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Since the “lunatics” ran the show, Marvel (and Disney) has earned billions of dollars, and the stars involved in many MCU films have seen their careers skyrocket.
Maybe Marvel and Disney need to find some more “lunatics”?
