How Marvel May Write Robert Downey Jr out of its Universe

The billion dollar question for Marvel is how it can get other actors to portray Tony Stark, just as in James bond, without hurting the box office of the franchise Robert Downey Jr has no doubt proved to be a lottery jackpot for Marvel. His four previous Marvel films have been gold at the box office grossing almost $4billion. But then, the astronomical fee he pockets is also a thorn in the financial flesh of the studio. For portraying the ‘genius, billionaire, play boy’ in the first Avenger movie, Downey‘s wallet got fatter by $ 50 million. Even so, this reportedly did not go down well with everybody at Marvel, considering that Downey earns far lesser dough on non –marvel flicks. Downey however seems poised to scoring a fatter cheque for the second Avenger movie: Age of Ultron; a trajectory some in Marvel are reportedly not too excited about, eliciting whispers that Iron man may be written out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe due to the hefty money Downey pockets for suiting up in iron. But how did Downey become the Sun in Marvels Cinematic Universe commanding such hefty fees? It all started way back before 2008, when Marvel took a gamble on him to helm the first Iron Man movie, against the backdrop of his chequered history with drugs and rehab. Downey was able to portray Tony stark in a charismatic way that turned a B-rated comic book super hero to an A Lister. The movie which cost $140 million, grossed $585.2 million as Downey cemented Stark in the consciousness of comic movie lovers, laying the rock that the whole Marvel world was built on. Iron Man laid the foundation for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But in doing that, Downey made himself inseparable from Tony Stark. In other words, many fans view the Sherlock Holmes star as an extension of Tony Stark and cannot imagine any other actor playing the ‘genius-billionaire –playboy philanthropist’. This apparently was the case with Joss Whedon, Avengers director, who was quoted as saying that he wouldn’t shoot an Avenger’s movie without Downey jnr. Whedon, in an interview in 2013, on the subject of Downey, said: “He is Iron man. He is Iron Man in a way that Sean Connery was James Bond. I have no intention of making ‘Avengers 2’ without him, nor do I think I’ll be called upon to do that. I don’t think it’s in my interest, Marvel’s interest, or his interest and I think everything will be fine.’ Whedon’s statement reveals a lot. Maybe some at Marvel wanted Whedon to exclude Downey from Avengers 2. But we all know now that, that did not happen, a testament to the merger of Downey and Stark. While Downey certainly deserves the credit for jump starting the Marvel Cinematic Universe, MCU, which looked precarious after the failure of the first hulk movie- though not a part of MCU- Marvel must be ruing how it allowed Downey to have so much clout in its universe as against other stars. This was evident when Downey who was supposed to play a small role in Captain America 3, got Marvel over a barrel, securing a bigger role thereby scoring a bigger cheque of $ 40 million. He also reportedly negotiated a portion of the film’s backend profit. But it didn’t even end there. In addition to receiving a cut of Captain America 3’s profit, there is a clause set in Downey’s contract that will put him in line for another pay out if the film breaks the franchise’s record. In other words, if Captain America : Civil War exceeds the $714 million that Winter Soldier grossed, Downey will receive an extra pay out, presumably for making that happen. And he is not even the titular hero. So the big question for Marvel is how it can get other actors to portray Tony Stark, just as in James bond, without hurting the box office of the franchise. The answer to that billion dollar question may just lie in the infinity stones, which have been central to the story arc of MCU. There are six infinity stones in Marvel comic books, of which four have debuted in MCU. The first was the Tesseract, which we saw both in the first Captain America and Avenger movie. Tesseract is a space stone that can teleport anything from one point in the universe to another. Loki used it in the first Avengers movie to summon the Chitauri army. Aether- another infinity stone- which we saw in the second Thor movie is a reality stone, capable of being absorbed into the body, granting the host incredible strength. It also has reality bending abilities able to cover a world in darkness. Orb, an infinity stone, which we saw in Guardians of the Galaxy, is a power stone imbuing the wielder with incredible power. It has enough power to destroy a planet. Then there is the mind stone, which was embedded in Loki’s scepter, which allows the wielder to control the mind of others. This was the reason Loki was able to use his scepter to control people in the first Avenger movie. The two stones that have not been featured in MCU are the soul and time stones. The soul stone, whatever name it will eventually be called in MCU, is a somewhat sentient substance that could trap, steal a being’s soul. Finally we have the time Stone that could alter time. Now the key to changing the actor that portrays Tony Stark might lie with the time stone. Marvel, which is yet to debut the time stone, could create a story arc in which Tony Stark somehow fumbles with the time stone, as he his wont to, which then transforms him to a younger Stark. That would be a good way to supplant Downey who is over 50, with a younger actor without ruffling the armoured feathers of Iron man’s fans.