Avengers: Endgame Directors Say Iron Man Was Right to Build Ultron

Throughout the decade the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been in existence, arguably not one character has had as much development as Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). After each battle and fight, Stark would consistently innovate his armory to make sure it was up to snuff, with the innovation after serving as the very creed behind the Avengers name.

That’s why Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo think Stark wasn’t in the wrong when he created Ultron during the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron.

“He was not wrong that there was a great threat coming, and they needed to build a suit of armor around the world,” co-director Joe Russo told Slate. “And at what point do civil liberties trump—no pun intended—do civil liberties come before the government’s ability to protect its citizens?”

“I think what’s interesting is that to some extent, they had to go through this,” the director continued. “There was a sense of destiny to this. They had to go through it to win it. And in a way both he and Cap were right.”

In the wake of Thanos (Josh Brolin) ridding the universe of half of all life in Avengers: Infinity War, Stark continued his innovative ways, eventually coming up with a way to travel through time and steal the Infinity Stones before Thanos had the chance to get his hands on them. Eventually, that led to Stark making the ultimate sacrifice as he killed himself using the Stones to kill Thanos and his massive army.

With Downey such a large part of the MCU, the Russos wanted to make sure he was on board with Stark’s ultimate demise and ended up having to pitch him the ending. Needless to say, the fan-favorite actor was perfectly alright with the sacrifice.

“We did pitch Robert his arc, because he kicked off the entire MCU,” Anthony Russo told THR. “The Tony Stark arc is the longest and perhaps fullest in the MCU. Once we decided we wanted this kind of ending for the character, we certainly wanted to make sure Robert was comfortable with it, just because of his enormous contribution to the MCU. We did pitch it out. We went over to meet with him and we pitched it out to him.”

“A lot of the actors are not opinionated about what we do. They like the fact that we are sort of in control of these stories and we are driving where they should go and we have a vision for where they should go and they trust in that. I think Downey may have had mixed emotions about thinking about [where Tony Stark ends up in Endgame], but I think at the end of the day, he totally accepted it.”

Avengers: Endgame is now in theaters.

Do you think Stark was in the right during Age of Ultron? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or by hitting me up on Twitter at @AdamBarnhardt!

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