Former Marvel Studios Boss: Board “Thought I Was Crazy” for Casting Robert Downey Jr. As Iron Man

“I’m just not the hero type. Clearly, with this laundry list of character defects, all the mistakes I’ve made, largely public,” Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark quipped in the final moments of 2008’s Iron Man, the Marvel Studios film that launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But the truth is: Downey was Iron Man. It’s something that David Maisel, a founder of Marvel Studios, recognized when the Oscar-nominated Chaplin actor — who had become more famous for his addictions and off-screen legal troubles than his on-screen works in Ally McBeal, Gothika, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang — auditioned to play the playboy superhero Tony Stark. 

“My board thought I was crazy to put the future of the company in the hands of an addict,” Maisel told The New Yorker. “I helped them understand how great he was for the role. We all had confidence that he was clean and would stay clean.”

When casting the title role came down to Downey or Timothy Olyphant, director Jon Favreau fought to cast Downey.

Maisel is credited as an executive producer on the early MCU films that predated 2012’s The Avengers: Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger. Before arranging the sale of Marvel to The Walt Disney Company in 2009, the talent-agency executive-turned-Marvel Studios president conceived an idea for a cinematic universe of interconnected films — or as Maisel put it: “It’s not 30 new movies. It’s one movie and 29 sequels.” And it likely wouldn’t have happened without Iron Man, which grossed more than half a billion dollars at the 2008 box office.

When reflecting on Downey’s casting for the 15th anniversary of Iron Man, Kevin Feige, the current chief of Marvel Studios, called the role “probably one of the greatest decisions in the history of Hollywood.” 

“I remember on later movies… I would say, ‘Robert, we wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for you.’ Meaning, ‘We wouldn’t have a studio if it wasn’t for you,’” Feige told Favreau in Marvel Studios’ official retrospective. Added Favreau, “I remember sitting down with [Robert], and I was like, ‘He just got it. He’s got that spark in him and his eye, and he’s ready. Once it was him, that’s when my life got a lot easier … [Downey] had a very [high] standard that he wanted to hit with, not wanting this to feel basic. He wanted it to be special.”

Downey would go on to appear in a total of 10 Marvel Studios films, including the Iron Man trilogy, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Avengers: Endgame.