Robert Downey Jr. Reflects On Box Office Bombs, Calls Avengers: Age Of Ultron “Content”

Robert Downey, Jr. cited Avengers: Age of Ultron as “content” more than art, making a distinction between that movie and other projects — like Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows or the documentary Sr., made about his father — that he has passion for. That he singled out Age of Ultron will likely strike up some conversation among Marvel fans; he didn’t say “the Avengers movies,” after all, and Age of Ultron is the one that gets the most hate from fans and critics. While Joss Whedon’s Avengers was a massive blockbuster and the sequel made a ton of money as well, it doesn’t hold up when compared to Avengers, Infinity War, or Endgame. 

The distinction came up in a conversation with Variety, in which Downey talked about the difference when he’s deeply invested in a project, versus when it’s just something to fill space on a streaming app. He singled out Doolittle, the Stephen Gaghan-directed remake of Doctor Doolittle that Downey appeared in. The film flopped, and while a 2020 release date didn’t help, it still drew fire from audiences and critics.

“The stress it put on my missus as she rolled her sleeves up to her armpits to make it even serviceable enough to bring to market was shocking,” Downey Jr. said of Doolittle. “After that point – what’s that phrase? Never let a good crisis go to waste? – we had this reset of priorities and made some changes in who our closest business advisers were.”

He said it was during that period when he started working on Sr., which chronicled his father’s final days. The movie went to Netflix, where he admits that it’s important to him, but “a piece of content” to everybody else. 

“It’s a way for me to let myself know that just because this may be the most important thing that I ever commit to a data card on a camera, it doesn’t mean it isn’t [expletive] content to everyone else,” Downey said.

Pressed to describe something else that he views as content, he name-dropped Avengers: Age of Ultron, while saying that his 2011 sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows isn’t  “content.” 

Avengers: Age of Ultron sits at a 76% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 82% rating from the audience. It had a pretty good reputation when it came out, but has since suffered by comparison to other “Infinity Saga” Marvel movies. Joss Whedon’s disastrous time as director of Justice League — which yielded a poorly-received movie and reports of Whedon being abusive on set — didn’t help, either.