There’s the old saying that every ride has to end, and for many movies, bands and TV shows, it’s always a good idea to go out while you’re still on top.
We’re still two years away from another Avengers movie, and we’ve got Iron Man 3 just around the corner, but even superheroes have to figure out when to call it a day.
This is what Robert Downey Jr was talking about recently to Collider in regards to Iron Man’s future. Looking at the trailers and ad campaigns for Iron Man 3, you get the impression it’s following a similar plot to The Dark Knight Rises where Tony Stark also loses it all, gets wounded, then comes back to vanquish his enemy, who in this case is The Mandarin, played by Ben Kingsley.
Of course Downey will have to come back as Stark in Avengers 2, but he also acknowledges he’s pushing fifty, and he told Collider and GQ, “It got me thinking about how big the message from your cosmic sponsor needs to be before you pick it up. How many genre movies can I do? How many follow-ups to a successful follow-up are actually fun?”
And let’s face it, as great as Iron Man and The Avengers is, you don’t want to keep doing them all your life, otherwise it will one day look like The Expendables, which wouldn’t be cool for a superhero flick. Like sports, this is a young man’s game, and you can’t blame Downey for wanting to do other things with his career.
He added he wants to step away from “easy wins…That is the great luxury that that Avengers payday affords us.” Downey has a piece of all the Iron Man films, and his payday on the first Avengers was a reported $50 million.
We just reported on TG that Joss Whedon is close to finished on the screenplay for Avengers 2, and now Collider informs us it looks like it will start production in February.
As Whedon said, “I didn’t think I was going to do the second one, but I had an idea for it before I had figured out the first one. You go into a movie not assuming that there’s going to be [another one]. I’ve seen plenty of movies that were the first part of the trilogy that never happened and it’s terrible.”
With Avengers 2 being a part of Marvel’s “Phase Two” of movies, Whedon has also been helping behind the scenes as an editorial consultant. “I’m really excited because I’ve gotten to look at everything and see behind the curtain on all the stuff…[Marvel Studio Head] Kevin Feige has a really clear vision…They’re all very different, but they really are what the next story should be.” If this is indeed the case, we’re definitely looking forward to what Marvel has for us over the next two years.
