News culture After the death of Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. experienced a major box office flop as this film was avoided by the box office
The 7th art is populated by such impressive pop culture icons that their actors take a back seat in favor of fictional characters. Daniel Radcliffe will forever be Harry Potter. Keanu Reeves will be Neo (Matrix) and John Wick for decades. Vin Diesel… Dominic Toretto. Sylvester Stallone… Rocky and Rambo. The examples are legion. Robert Downey Jr. suffers from the same disease. After the death of Iron Man in Avengers: Endgame, the actor tried to relaunch his career and the flop was masterful.
A difficult post-“Iron Man”
Robert Downey Jr., the most important actor in Hollywood in 2024, can thank Marvel Studios. Without the role of Tony Stark aka Iron Man, which he is still remembered for today, he would probably never have experienced such a comeback. He was arrested several times in the late ’90s and early 2000s and, after several promising performances, struggled to get his career off the ground. We had to wait for David Fincher’s Zodiac in 2007, but especially for Iron Man the following year, to discover a transformed and committed Robert Downey Jr.
The sequel is known to all fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Robert Downey Jr. played the MCU’s billionaire superhero for a decade before saying goodbye at the end of Avengers: Endgame in a scene that went down in history. Since that fateful episode, the American actor has only appeared in two films and one documentary: Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer”, which won him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and before that, “The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle”.
Produced for the “modest” sum of 175 to 192.4 million US dollars, The original title of “Dolittle” only grossed $251.5 million at the box office, which means significant losses for the Hollywood studios. As great as Iron Man’s fame is, Robert Downey Jr. cannot use it to convince audiences to go to the cinema. He is, so to speak, a prisoner of this iron armor to which he owes everything (or almost everything). In this context, his predicted return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which fans have repeatedly demanded, was an obvious choice.
The return of Robert Downey Jr. to the MCU
The news broke during the San Diego Comic Con in late July 2024. Marvel Studios used a panel dedicated to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to present the future of the saga in cinema and on Disney+. With Kang the Conqueror on the sidelines since the legal setbacks of his interpreter Jonathan Majors, the place of the “big bad” of future phases remained vacant. And now we know who will sit on the throne. It is Doctor Doom who will take over at short notice, under the mask of none other than Robert Downey Jr.. Marvel did not provide a script explanation for the actor’s return. Following this revelation and for the sake of consistency: The film Avengers: The Kang Dynasty was renamed Avengers: Doomsday. It will be released in May 2026 and will be part of Phase 6 of the MCU.
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