The MCU Question That Left Robert Downey Jr. Stunned (Video)

By Brandon Davis

Back in 2016, Kevin Feige recruited Sony Pictures for a collaboration with Marvel Studios which allowed for Spider-Man to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Captain America: Civil War. This meant Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man character showed up at Peter Parker's house in a scene from that film, getting Spider-Man to join his fight against Captain America. With this being a reboot of Spider-Man for the MCU at the same time when Daredevil and other Marvel shows were releasing on Netflix, it raised a question among fans regarding how Tony Stark knew about Spider-Man and whether or not he knew about other heroes in New York City. 

During a press conference for Captain America: Civil War (and years before the Phase Zero podcast would exist), we were in attendance and wanted to get to the bottom of whether or not Tony Stark knew about everything going on in New York City. Six years later, we may never get that answer, but Downey Jr. still had fun fielding it in front of his boss Kevin Feige, director Anthony Russo, and co-stars Don Cheadle, Paul Bettany, and Emily VanCamp. Having worked with him on projects prior to Civil War and spending plenty of time with the Iron Man actor, at-the-time future WandaVision star Bettany was shocked to see him not have an immediate answer. "This the first time I've ever seen that," Bettany laughed.

"Listen, if you know more about this stuff than I do," Downey Jr. started to say. "You know what? Matter of fact, I embrace you! I want to.. You should find... Tell me me everything I don't know! Give me a complete education. Which brings me back to this point, This is Tony's continued enlightenment. Tony is a guy essentially broken and narcissistic and over the course of all these movies, he's kind of waking up to that and realizing it and just trying to heal and become a better person, which I think you see across the board for pretty much all the characters really. I guess the least informed version."

The clip was recorded by ComicBook.com in 2016. Now, it has been re-posted by the Phase Zero podcast's official Twitter account, where more exclusive clips, live shows, news, and interviews are posted. You can find all of the Marvel content on Phase Zero's official YouTube channel. See Downey Jr. discussing the Spider-Man and Daredevil question below!

More seriously, the writers of Captain America: Civil War talked with ComicBook.com in 2016 about how they fit Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe by having Tony Stark know about him. "I think he's been keeping tabs," Christopher Markus said. "I think he might know about everybody." 

As for whether or not the writers thought about bringing in characters which were on Netflix at the time, it did not seem to be a part of the plan. "I'd say that's the only buy there," Stephen McFeely added. "We always left a recruitment section. Everybody has an arc but some are really big and some are small. The recruitment section allowed you to bring people in for the big fight and call it Civil War but not require that they have 18 beats of an arc. We knew we were gonna go get Spider-Man, we knew we were gonna get Ant-Man, but they have smaller arcs."

Now, Daredevil is set to appear in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and Echo after being featured in a Marvel Studios for the first time with Spider-Man: No Way Home (Netflix's Daredevil series which is now on Disney+ was a product of Marvel TV, which operated as a separate entity from Marvel Studios). In 2024, 18 episodes of Daredevil: Born Again will put the character back into a title role. As the story goes, Iron Man and Spider-Man remained close friends after Captain America: Civil War.

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