Robert Downey Jr. inIron Man 3Disney / Marvel
The intelligence came , as such news so often does , at that annual tiptop of studio apartment hype and intellectual place promotion , San Diego Comic - Con . Robert Downey Jr. — newly minted Oscar - winner , a adept emancipate from light-green - screen responsibility — will be returning to the enfranchisement that revived his calling , the Marvel Cinematic Universe . Not , mind you , to the purpose of Tony Stark , the mogul - turned - superhero he play for about a decade , begin with the first MCU installment , Iron Man . No , Downey will be pace into the armor of a dissimilar quality : arguably the most iconic Marvel supervillain of them all , Doctor Doom .
The devotee there in Hall H naturally live on risky . How could they not ? It was like a live version of one of the cameo show we ’ve total to expect in an actual Marvel picture show : From the studio that brought you John Krasinski as Mr. Fantastic and Chris Evans as a dissimilar superhero he flirt for a unlike studio apartment amount … Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark as Victor Von Doom . Or something like that .
Robert Downey Jr. inIron Man 3Disney/Marvel
At the peril of sound like a full political party pooper , is n’t there actually something kind of … desperateabout all this ? tempt Downey back with a carload of money ( $ 100 million , if estimates are to be believe ) , coaxing fellow Marvel alums the Russo brothers to direct another twoAvengersmovies — these are the move of a studio apartment in retirement . Beneath the holler of clapping , you could learn the scare of executives convinced that the only way to climb to the summit of Hollywood again is to move rearward , to transparently strain for the victory of the past .
Not so long ago , it feel like Marvel could only lookforward — to the next crossing , to the next summer , to the merriment you ’ll have later if you keep tune in . The most damning case you could make against picture show likeIron Man 2was that they operate like glorified previews for other picture : a cinema of coming attractions , always teasing what ’s on the remote horizon . Of course , that paid off big time withAvengers : Infinity WarandAvengers : Endgame , the one - two clout culmination of every MCU blockbuster that came before , rewarding the patronage of the faithful with an all - intention climax that smashed together every toy dog Marvel had dropped into the sandpit over the anterior decade .
But how do you keep audience induct in a floor that reached such a natural terminus it was calledEndgame ? The Marvel movies released in the backwash of that corner - office phenomenon have miss the sense of forward impulse that defined the first three “ phase ” of the MCU . If the mosaic plotting of the franchise has always been a triumph of branding more than anything else , late entry have failed to create the picture of a larger tarradiddle deserving tracking . It does n’t help that the series has lost its most likable anchorman of personality : Iron Man and Captain America . And the characters introduced since , like Shang - Chi and the Eternals , have n’t exactly filled those massive boot .
Since 2019 , it ’s been quantity over quality for Marvel . Little more than a month ever buy the farm without a movie or a Disney+ series strike the food market . That oversaturation may have quenched stockholders ( and saved the jobs of executive who only have to forfend risks ) , but it has n’t needfully rise or even entirely held onto the audience . Rushed through output — and sometimes into theatre with bare effects — the film themselves have become worse . And that ’s been reflected in the soft outturn for foul blockbusters likeEternals , Ant - Man and the Wasp : Quantumania , andThe marvel . As Deadpool tell Wolverine in last month ’s please - let - this - employment team - up , “ You ’re connect at a slight bit of a humiliated point . ”
Marvel is , of row , still churning out mess of hit — Deadpool & Wolverinebeing the most recent example . But the studio ’s compass on the imagination ( and wallets ) of the moviegoing populace has undeniably slackened . So it ’s no huge surprisal to see Kevin Feige and company take care to yesterday . In that respectfulness , the Multiverse has proved a useful gimmick . If you ’re hemorrhaging popular type and failing to replace them with popular new ones , why not go digging around in movie account for some dead ringer ? It ’s mostly pay off so far . Spider - Man : No Way Home , with its triad of vane - swingers , well-nigh equaled the success ofEndgame . And the recentDoctor StrangeandDeadpoolsequels have both drawn hearing to theaters in big bit with the promise of go out familiar cheek from other universes .
As for bringing back Downey , that will almost sure enough get butts in seats , too . There ’s no rationality to close that it ca n’t mold creatively as well . Any comic referee will narrate you that turning the good guy rope into the bad guy cable is a dependably entertaining twist on formula . And gift how much Tony Stark hulk over this total franchise , there ’s a lot the filmmakers can do to play with the associations of the audience and the character alike — assuming , of course , that Downey ’s Doctor Doom is a edition of Stark and not a whole dissimilar character reference . Thatwould be odd .
Still , Downey ’s homecoming betray uncertainty about how to move . It say that everyone in complaint is sweating the future of the MCU and bank to a great extent on its past . The overall impression is that Marvel is in its ouroboros era , devouring its own hind end to keep from famish . That does n’t seem like the soundest strategy for recollective - terminal figure success . Avengers : privy Wars , coming in 2027 , will likely flirt like one giant contract bridge dialogue , arrange for appearances by every placeable actor who ’s ever slip one’s mind on the costume of a Marvel superhero . But then what ? Once the cameo supply is exhausted , how do you keep people hooked ?
For this giant , on-going , ungainly franchise to survive , it ’s going to have to do more than simply retrace its own footstep and arrange periodic hits of spot - the - cite Dopastat . Feige will have to make people remember why they fell in love with Marvel in the first situation — with new persona worth follow , with new storey worth notification , with Modern movies worth line up around the pulley for . Otherwise , sooner or later , it really will be eschaton for the Avengers .
