Did Robert Downey Jr. Just Tease an Iron Man Return?

Robert Downey Jr. joined Rob Lowe for his Literally! podcast recently, where he opened up about his work as Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Tony Stark actor seems to looking back on his work as an Avenger quite fondly. Despite becoming a global icon as the armored super hero, Downey Jr. does think the work he did as Iron Man is worthy of further recognition, seemingly similar to that of his Golden Globe win for Oppenheimer and though a return to the character seems possible, Downey Jr's few words on the idea seem to indicate it's not happening any time soon.

Downey Jr. debuted as Iron Man in the 2008 movie titled around the character, going on with a tenure spanning more than a decade and concluding with Avengers: Endgame. Now, Downey Jr. has been award a Golden Globe award for his work as Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer. "I felt so exposed after being in the cocoon of Marvel where I think I did some of the best work I will ever do, but it went a little bit unnoticed because of the genre," Downey Jr. said on the podcast.

At another point in Lowe's podcast, Downey Jr. got a phone call. Lowe joked to ask the actor if it was Marvel calling for him to come back to work with them, to which Downey Jr. replied, "Not just yet!"

Lowe then interjected his own idea for how the Stark actor could negotiate a return. "You know what I say? That phone is going to ring, baby, and I want to be on that call. I want to be negotiating for you," Lowe said. "I know what your deal is. Here's what you do. You go, 'I'll come back and I'll play Tony Stark for you guys again since you f-cked everything up. But I want a gazillion dollars. I know what that number should be, and I want first dollar gross of every ensuing movie.' That's what I would do."

Downey Jr. laughed off the idea from Lowe. "That sounds quite hostile," he replied.

The idea of Robert Downey Jr. returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Tony Stark in some form or fashion is not a new one. With the Marvel Studios product showing shrinking box office returns in 2023, rumors of the studio aiming to bring back some of its original stars starting swirling. However, Marvel president Kevin Feige has tried to quell the mills by claiming there are currently no plans of having Iron Man brought back to life. "We are going to keep that moment and not touch that moment again," Feige shared. "We all worked very hard for many years to get to that, and we would never want to magically undo it in any way."

Since Iron Man's ending in Avengers: Endgame, it has also been revealed that Downey Jr. was not exactly on board with ending his run as Tony Stark in 2019. Ahead of Downey Jr. winning his Golden Globe award with an Academy Award nomination and result looming, MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios co-author Joanna Robinson shared her thoughts on Downey's possible return during an episode of the Phase Zero podcast. "Between Downey and Evans, I would have said before Downey because once you get into the later chapters you find out that Downey didn't want to be killed off in Endgame and was sort of 'no thank you,'" Robinson explained. "You would expect that he would be one of the easiest calls to get him back. I mean, a lot of money, but also a phone call. But Downey, I think is about to win an Oscar for Oppenheimer so I think that changed the calculus a bit in terms of how ready he is to be Tony Stark again."

Do you think Robert Downey Jr. will return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Share your thoughts in the comment section!