5 Ways Marvel Could Deal With Robert Downey Jr Leaving Iron Man
With Iron Man 3 landing, excitement is at fever pitch. Yet with all the yelling and squealing by press and fans a like, things could take a more disappointing turn once the dust settles on this movie. Robert Downey Jr.'s contract with Marvel Studios is going to be up after The Avengers 2's release in 2014 and it is not entirely clear if he intends to come back to the franchise as Tony Stark for future movies. Add on top of that the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow and Don Cheadle have gone on record to say that they don't expect there to be an Iron Man 4.... could the future look bleak for the franchise in this incarnation? Of course Downey Jr and his co-stars could be playing it smart in order to negotiate a better deal to see out the decade as these characters but this is a bridge that is going to need to be crossed at some point. Downey Jr is certainly not getting any younger and with one of the key differences between the film and comics medium being the ravages of time on live-action physical incarnations, it's going to catch up with Marvel Studios at some point. Films are tied to reality. We can't have seventy years of a character being played by the same actor. This was an inevitable problem that has somewhat blindsided most of us up until this point. But let's just keep this to Iron Man for now. It is highly likely that he will be the most complicated instance of this in the Marvel Movieverse. Will they make a conscious acknowledgement of the fact that we have a new Iron Man or are we going to just seal over the cracks? Lets explore the options...